Troubled patient assaults Burnsville hospital workers, dies in jail

A 38-year-old patient in a mental health crisis broke off a metal rod from his emergency room bed and assaulted four workers at Ridges Hospital in Burnsville last week before dying in police custody.

The patient, who had been under observation in the hospital for suicide risk, died a few hours after the assault in the Dakota County jail, according to a police report.

The attack is the fourth against hospital workers to draw public attention since last fall, and has similarities to an incident on Christmas Day when a patient with mental health concerns escaped and fatally assaulted a security guard outside Lakes Medical Center in Wyoming, Minn.

Both hospitals are part of M Health Fairview, but the health system isn’t the only one confronting violence in its hallways. Caregivers were assaulted in October by patients under confinement who were trying to escape Essentia Health hospitals in Duluth and Brainerd. Public data shows Minnesota hospitals have seen rising rates of violence over the past decade.

“This is a tragic outcome,” Fairview said in a written statement about the Feb. 4 incident at Ridges. “Violence against health care workers is unacceptable and remains a growing concern across the country. Our care teams show up every day to serve patients and communities with compassion, and they must feel safe while doing so. We remain steadfast in our commitment to strengthening prevention and intervention efforts.”

The Ridges ER in Burnsville has seen a sharp increase in patients, serving as the closest hospital for a growing metro region south of the Minnesota River. That includes patients in immediate mental health crises who are transported by ambulances or squad cars.

Fairview responded last fall by creating a locked, eight-bed unit with its own treatment team in the Ridges ER for these crisis patients. The Feb. 4 attack by patient Aaron Roeller started in that unit after he talked tearfully by phone with his mother, according to a police report. A hospital worker tried to remove the phone from his room as a standard safety precaution.

Burnsville police officer Vadim Romanets arrived to see multiple hospital workers and two fellow officers restraining Roeller. The first injured worker was “in a neck brace and was strapped to a back board when I arrived,” Romanets said in the police report. The medic who was attacked “had blood over his face [and] on the back of his head.”

Officers restrained Roeller with two sets of handcuffs because of his large size, according to the police report, and then drove him to the county jail. They paused at a gas station so another officer could catch up and deliver a seizure medication from the hospital that had been prescribed for Roeller.

Where and how Roeller died wasn’t listed in police reports and is under review by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner. A Washington County detective is investigating the death in Dakota County’s custody.

An obituary described Roeller, nicknamed Butch, as someone who gave kindness freely, loved online gaming, and enjoyed camping and the outdoors.

Violent injuries in hospitals have increased over the past decade, according to Minnesota’s hospital adverse event database and workers’ compensation claims filed by injured workers. Minnesota had a particularly high rate of violent assaults in hospitals in 2023 and 2024 that caused workers to miss time or transfer jobs, according to new data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The patients then get stuck in ERs with nowhere to go, which only worsens their agitation and puts workers at risk, said Chris Rubesch, a Duluth nurse and president of the Minnesota Nurses Association.

“They’re unhandcuffed and now we as nurses are supposed to give compassionate, safe care to a patient who law enforcement had to physically restrain,” said Rubesch, whose union represents nurses at multiple Fairview hospitals, but not Ridges or Lakes.

The union has argued that more ER staffing is needed to monitor at-risk patients and address concerns before they erupt. It recently fought for contract language outfitting nurses at other Fairview hospitals with wearable panic alarms.

Fairview recently built a special EmPATH unit at Southdale Hospital in Edina as a calming alternative to the emergency room for patients with acute mental health concerns.

Minnesota legislators in response to the problem required hospitals to submit violence prevention action plans and to update them annually based on whether they are working or not. State attention to the problem increased in 2014 after a patient at St. John’s Hospital in Maplewood also used a bar ripped from his bed to assault multiple workers.