Local Dallas CBS Affiliate Goes Undercover to Reveal Medical Kidnapping of Teenage Girl

Being held against one's will is one of the most frightening, and powerless, things a person can experience. Whether it is a hostage situation with a bank robber, or a masked man holding a loved one for ransom, the terror experienced by both the victim and the family of the victim is the stuff of blockbuster movies, and the hero swoops in and defeats the bad guys, setting the captives free. What if, instead of the captor being a stereotypical "bad guy," the captor is a hospital or the state? Would the terror and post traumatic stress experienced by the victim be any less? Those who have experienced this tell us that it is just as disturbing and traumatic. If anything, the powerlessness takes on a whole other dimension because this isn't the way things are supposed to happen in America. The hospitals are supposed to be the good guys that we turn to in times of need. A news investigative team in Texas has investigated a number of reports of local hospitals holding young people against their will, while their parents are stripped of their power to help their children, saying that: "This could happen to almost any parent out there." Investigative reporter Ginger Allen says that they have investigated similar complaints "for years," and that the story they reported on October 27, 2017, is: "an example of the complaint we probably hear most often. People - kids - are transported to these hospitals and you can't get them out. This means that any parent out there could go through what you are about to watch play out." A teen was taken to Sundance Behavioral Hospital in Texas and held against her will, even when her mother tried to check her out against medical advice. She was also drugged without her mother's consent while she was there. CBS 11 went undercover with hidden cameras to report on the medical kidnapping.