Father, attacked by son in mental health crisis, says changes to Oregon’s civil commitment laws are badly needed

As Mathew Padrow lay on the ground, faint from the blood loss of 13 stab wounds to his back, neck and head, he was most worried about the fate of his attacker.

“Don’t shoot him, don’t shoot him,” he remembers thinking at the police who had responded to his neighbor’s 911 call. But Padrow, who had sprinted out of his house moments before shouting for help, had collapsed on the neighbor’s sidewalk and couldn’t see what was happening behind him.

Before he passed out, Padrow heard an officer shout to get down, not to drop a weapon. “Thank God,” he thought, “my son must have put down the knife.”

That he was even in this situation didn’t seem real. His then 24-year-old son, whom The Oregonian/OregonLive agreed not to name to protect the young man’s privacy, had never shown any signs of the psychosis that had come to grip him until about a month earlier, Padrow said…

Read the full story on The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Photo by Beth Nakamura.