Enhanced Non-Lethal Security Blog

This article was originally published by the Boston Herald on April 5, 2015.

By Jordan Graham

Newton-Wellesley Hospital will be rolling out new, non-lethal devices for its security staff in the coming weeks, as hospitals across the country have seen an increase in violent attacks by patients.

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This post was originally published on LinkedIn. 

Security guards put their lives on the line every day. Unfortunately, injuries are a regular job hazard. All too frequently security guards are assaulted in the line of duty.

Take for example, a recent incident in Riverside, California. The Press-Enterprise reports a suspect pulled a knife on a security guard outside a McDonald's. As the security guard approached, the suspect attacked. The security guard suffered cuts on both arms, but fortunately wasn't seriously injured.

Does your hospital security program deliver the patient, staff, and officer security your hospital requires? If you’re like one-third of U.S. hospitals, the answer could be no. When you combine patients’ agitated emotional state with behavioral health issues, drug and alcohol abuse and a poor prognosis, it should come as no surprise that 32 percent of U.S. hospitals reported a rise in attacks in 2014, according to an exclusive Guardian 8 survey of 380 hospital administrators, Chief Security Officers and staff.  

 When Guardian 8 first formed back in 2008, we were motivated by a single goal: to create a solution to the problem that made being a security guard one of the most hazardous jobs there are. We knew it would revolutionize professional security when we created a new category called Enhanced Non-Lethal. We assembled a team of experts representative of the best in the industry, including companies like TASER, Digital Ally and Garmin. We incorporated the technology of companies like Sabre Red, BladeTech and Bluetooth. We patented our own precision OC stream to create a product that filled the role of an "intermediate" response - as I like to say, between talking to 'em and shooting at 'em.  

Hospital security staff have long been in the difficult position of trying to keep an emergency department approachable as a valued service to the community, and yet protect staff and patients from those who are capable of extreme violence. This conundrum was at the core of a recent blog post appearing on the Joint Commission Leadership blog, titled Hospital Security – Different Approaches to Mitigating Violence, by Mark Crafton. The piece centered on discussion of the pros and cons of arming hospital security guards with deadly force weapons.