Patrick Bolden-Smith Missing After Being Taken To County-USC Medical Center For Mental Health Evaluation
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — The family of a 26-year-old man is searching frantically for him Monday after he was discharged from County-USC Medical Center, where he had been taken for a mental health evaluation.
Patrick Bolden-Smith, who moved to Los Angeles from New Orleans to pursue a music career, has been missing since Sunday. His mother, Theresa Bolden, flew out this weekend to bring him home – but his mental health had deteriorated to a point that she was forced to call an ambulance for him.
"He's got to be terrified. I don't know what else to do at this point," she said.
Bolden-Smith had moved to Southern California just before the pandemic struck. Like so many others, the pandemic cost him his job – and Bolden says her son had been struggling to cope.
"He was not himself. As the couple of days progressed, he just got more and more confused," she said. "He had a hard time thinking, saying too much was going on at one time."
So she called 911 to get him help on Saturday night. But on Sunday, he was released from the hospital, and since then, there has been no sign of Bolden-Smith.
Bolden-Smith's mother and friend, Kate Spence, say they don't understand why he was released from the hospital so fast and have been struggling to get information about his release because he is an adult.
"What I'm scared of now is, because I feel like in his head, because we put him in the hospital, he's afraid to come home because he feels maybe this isn't a safe space for him, even though we were trying to help him," Spence said.
A missing persons report has been filed with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. He was described as a 6-foot-tall Black man, about 140 pounds, with dark brown hair and eyes, last seen wearing a faded yellow T-shirt, white gym shorts, and gray tennis shoes.
"I'm just trying to stay calm about it so I can stay focused to find him," Bolden said.
In an email, a spokesperson for the LA County Department of Health Services said patient privacy laws prevent the medical center from confirming whether Bolden-Smith was a patient or not.