For many nurses working in Vermont’s emergency departments, the threat of physical and verbal abuse has shifted from being a rare occurrence to a daily expectation. This grim reality was highlighted by the recent sentencing of Destiny Hubbell, who was ordered to serve between three and a half to ten years after attacking healthcare workers in a Morrisville emergency room. During the episode, Hubbell spat in the faces of staff members and threatened to strangle a registered nurse, leading to multiple charges of assault with bodily fluids on protected professionals. While this particular conviction is rare, medical staff say it reflects a pervasive culture of violence that often goes unreported because employees feel there are no meaningful consequences for attackers.
The tension lies in the difficult intersection of medicine and the law. Elizabeth Couto, director of the Vermont Emergency Nurse Association and one of the targets of Hubbell’s aggression, notes that navigating accountability is incredibly complex when patients suffer from severe mental health crises. In many instances, defendants are deemed incompetent to stand trial, leaving victims without recourse and perpetrators without structured help. Lamoille County State’s Attorney Aliena Gerhard argues that Vermont lacks the specialized mental health courts used in other states to balance treatment with accountability. Currently, the state relies heavily on orders of non-hospitalization which Gerhard claims do virtually nothing to protect victims or ensure that unstable patients receive the secure care they actually need.
Healthcare providers argue that these outbursts are symptoms of a broken social safety net rather than simple criminal intent. Samuel Demers, a staff nurse at University of Vermont Medical Center, explains that emergency rooms have become an over-relied upon last resort for populations whose community needs are ignored. When combined with long wait times and a lack of available psychiatric beds, these environments can become powder kegs for those experiencing behavioral health emergencies. Staff find themselves acting as makeshift warehouse operators for patients waiting for placements that may never come, increasing the volatility within the clinic walls.
Addressing this systemic failure requires more than just security guards; it requires an expansion of alternative care settings. Representative Anne Donahue suggests that establishing mental health urgent care clinics would allow people in crisis to be treated by clinicians or peer supporters in less stressful environments than a chaotic ER. By integrating mental health specialists into police departments and improving trauma informed care training for hospital staff, advocates believe Vermont can reduce triggers for violence. Until then, however, those on the front lines continue to provide compassionate care while bracing themselves for the next attack.
