Tony Mantor: Why Not Me the World
Jack Wood:: A Father's Fight for Mental Health Reform
Sat, 10 May 2025
Send us a textJack Wood shares his son Jonathan's journey through Florida's mental health system, revealing how management failure rather than lack of resources creates catastrophic outcomes for those with severe mental illnesses.• Jonathan's early life included kidney disorder requiring powerful medications including cancer drugs• At 18, Jonathan developed schizophrenia with fixed delusions about having $10 billion from his blood plasma• Community treatment teams refused hospitalization despite clear deterioration and self-harm• After assaulting his father during psychosis, Jonathan entered a cycle of jail and inadequate hospital care• Florida's mental health system operates in silos with facilities prioritizing administrative goals over patient outcomes• Current system puts 60% of mentally ill people in jails rather than treatment facilities• Jack proposes a pilot program where a governor-appointed team coordinates care across all agencies• The solution requires breaking down bureaucratic barriers between law enforcement, courts, and healthcare• Like "a football team without a coach," mental health services need central coordination to function effectively• Jack advocates approaching governors and state leadership as they oversee all aspects of mental healthcareIf you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to TonyMantor.com Contact so they can give us their information to potentially become a guest on our show.https://tonymantor.comhttps://Facebook.com/tonymantorhttps://instagram.com/tonymantorhttps://twitter.com/tonymantorhttps://youtube.com/tonymantormusicintro/outro music bed written by T. WildWhy Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI)
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and guests of this podcast episode?
Welcome to Why Not Me? The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mantor. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world hopefully you gain more awareness acceptance and a better understanding for autism around the world
Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me? The World, Humanity Over Handcuffs, The Silent Crisis special event. Joining us today is Jack Wood. He's a passionate advocate dedicated to being a strong voice for individuals, families, and organizations affected by severe brain disorders, including schizophrenia, psychoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and more.
His mission is to drive meaningful change, aiming to end Florida's catastrophic and inhumane outcomes for those with severe mental illnesses. Jack focuses on improving conditions for groups of people rather than just individuals.
He will also tell us how his son's struggles reshaped his perspective, inspiring him to leverage those lessons to advocate for better laws and support systems for everyone with mental illness. Thanks for coming on.
Not a problem. Not a problem.
If you could give us a little background on your son and some of the struggles he had and how they evolved.
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Chapter 2: What health challenges did Jack Wood's son Jonathan face in his early years?
Jonathan was adopted. He, at age two and a half, contracted what's called nephrotic syndrome. It's a kidney disorder where one of the membranes stops processing protein. You urinate away your protein, and then if you catch a cold, you die. Ugly disorder. There's only three medications back when this took place, and this would have been in 1990, 91, cyclosporine, cytoxin, and prednisone.
They put him on 55 milligrams of prednisone, and it goes 14 days, and the kidney starts working again. Then we go three or four months and it stops working again. They go through that. When the prednisone doesn't work, then they put him back on Cytoxan, which was a kidney rejection. And the other one was a cancer drug. So he went through those all the way up till age eight.
Unbelievable amount of trauma was physical induced from the heavy dose of medication.
Is this something that affects him even today?
He had his last episode when he was eight years old and it's considered in remission. At age 11, he had a cyst the size of a large marble in the center of his left kidney. and ended up having major surgery in Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, and they took a third of his left kidney. It was then that the behavior problem started.
It went all through grade school and all through high school trying to figure out what it was, and they looked at everything from oppositional defiance to reactive attachment disorder to obsessive compulsive disorder to early onset bipolar, all different And they tried a number of things. And we spent 15 visits to the Ohio State Medical Center to try a diagnosis issue.
And Dr. Freestadt, who was the chief psychologist at OSU, actually was the number one psychologist in the country by the American Academy of Psychiatry. for her work in child and adolescent mood disorders. Never got the thing solved.
Fast forward, among a lot of hospitalizations and some involuntary hospitalizations in high school, when he turned 18, he came downstairs one morning and said, dad, I want all of my money today. And I said, well, what money are you talking about? And he said, my $10 billion. I have $10 billion.
They took blood from me when I was three years old and four years old and found out that my blood plasma would cure AIDS in the whole world. You couldn't get the money then, Dad, because you had to cut a deal. So you... Bill, the attorney, Mike Pugia, chemist from Notre Dame, and two professors in MIT and two doctors in the Boston Hospital got together and took my money. And you have it.
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Chapter 3: What were the early signs and diagnosis challenges of Jonathan's mental illness?
Well, prior to that, he had been in the hospital a year, had been out of the hospital for about 10 months, and started having all of the same symptoms and episodes that come with schizophrenia.
Was he in any programs at the time?
He was in a program called ACT. You may be familiar with it. They're in most of the state's community treatment team. understaffed with underqualified people who were also underpaid. Unbelievable. They would stop by our house once every two weeks for 30 minutes with a sheet of paper to run through a checklist to justify their payments.
So Jonathan ended up sticking me in the left arm with a knife, and we had asked the ACT team if they would please give him, in Florida it's called a Baker Act, an involuntary hospitalization. What happened when you tried that? They refused to do that. They said that he's not a threat to himself or threat to others.
And we're saying, you have no idea the amount of psychotic episodes that are going on with him. He is definitely not stable. And we kept approaching, kept approaching. And finally, they came to me and they said, you need to call the police if he does something dangerous, but we can't take him.
What happened from that point?
So Jonathan threatened me and he called the police himself. What happened when the police got there? Came to his house. He was living by himself in a mobile home. He told the police he wanted to put a restraining order on 150 people. And so they called me, oh, are you Mr. Wood? Yes, it is. Well, is your son Jonathan? Yes, it is. And he said, is he doing all right?
And I said, well, he has mental illness. And I said, he's having a lot of schizophrenic psychotic episodes. Brian, I'll call you back. He called me back and he said, gee, says Mr. Wood, I know you're not going to like this information because I can tell you that he's a very sick boy. I can see that. He's telling me that he won't threaten himself or others.
And so the only thing I could do is if you want to come out here, I can follow you to the hospital with him. But no, we can't take him in. So a week later, almost to the day, Jonathan cut himself down his left arm in 14 places. The ACT team and the VP of care for the facility of acute care said they all cut. Speaking about schizophrenia, they all cut. So he's really just making a big scene.
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Chapter 4: How did Jonathan’s schizophrenia manifest and affect his behavior?
Here's what you can do, Mr. Wood. You can go to the Sumter County Court and apply for what's called an ex parte. What's an ex parte? Well, it's the court giving you the authority that if you think that Jonathan is a threat to himself or others, then you would have the authority to involuntarily hospitalize him. So I went to the court, spent two hours filling out paperwork.
The next day, I get a call from the clerk of the court, and she said, your application for ex parte has been denied. I didn't bring the paperwork home, so I got in my car and went down to the courthouse, asked them if I could have a copy of it, and a big black stamp right in the center of it with an X on it said, denied.
So I was talking with the clerk of the court, and she said, I will deny I ever said this. But I believe that Judge Morley is turning the ex parte's down because they will dispatch a sheriff to go pick up, in your case, your son. They will take him to the local mental health care center. They will take him in the access center, keep him four to six hours, give him a PRN and probably release him.
And she said that officer will spend six or seven hours working on that case because he will not be able to leave the scene until they either accept Jonathan there or turn him back. And that's exactly what happened. So we weren't able to do the ex parte.
This is just too incredible to believe. What happened?
One week to the day later, two weeks to the day for the sheriff, that when he was, it was the same sheriff. His name is Corporal McPheeters. Jonathan stuck me in the arm with a knife. We called 911. Sheriff McPeters came out and said, gee whiz. I said, does he appear to be a threat to himself now or others? Because there was blood all down my arm.
Aggravated battery to an over 65-year-old, felony of the first degree. I had been working since November to get him incarcerated, get him involuntarily taken in because I, as a caregiver or parent, was watching the deterioration. February 17, follow these numbers. February 17, 22 to February 24, they did an arraignment.
At the arraignment, the judge said, my goodness, called the two attorneys forward and said, this doesn't look right to me. We need a mental health evaluation. Our next hearing date is July 27th. Jonathan sat in a jail from March 17 to July 27. July 27 comes around the week of July 27. A psychiatric physician went in, evaluated him, said he's not a threat to himself or others.
He's confident to stand his charges. Mrs. Wood and I go to the hearing. July 27, same thing happened. Jonathan came in and he was clearly out of it. So the judge said, oh boy, we need to, I don't know who judged him to be competent, but this guy has a problem. Okay. Our next hearing will be October 20th. and told the attorneys to order another evaluation. The evaluation never took place.
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Chapter 5: What difficulties did Jack Wood encounter with Florida’s mental health system?
Hatcher is her name, but Judge Hatcher, I hate to report this, but the mental health evaluation was not completed because the physician that was going to do the evaluation refused to come into the jail.
Wow, that's unbelievable. So what did you do from there?
okay our next hearing will be january 18. you need to get the mental health evaluation he's clearly out of it second week of december jonathan had major meltdown the other thing in florida they're allowed to have telephone access so he calls me on the average of 20 times a day he called me just yesterday 24 times And they won't restrict the phone use.
So I have to say, you can talk to me in the morning and at night. And then I have to ignore all these phone calls. So anyway, he called me and left a voicemail on my phone, which was outrageous. Well, all of the phone calls also that he made from the jail were recorded. So I went down to the jail to get the actual recording of the phone call he made before the voicemail.
They gave me a copy of it at the sheriff's office. Once they found out I had the copy, they did a telephone hearing and sent him to the South Florida State Hospital. Never even had a physical hearing. that wouldn't have happened tony had i not got my hands on that disc jonathan went to the south florida evaluation training center january 6 2023 he was there may 24th he was beat up assaulted
and beat up physically in the jail. The person that did it, the staff person, was fired. Jonathan was transferred to the Northwest Florida State Hospital on May 24th and was there all the way through October.
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Chapter 6: How did the community treatment team (ACT) respond to Jonathan’s crisis?
With all the traveling you had to do, going back and forth with the jail and everything was going on, what was your next move?
In October, they transferred him for the benefit of my wife and I, because it was a five-hour drive, transferred him to the Northeast Florida State Hospital. He went there in October and stayed there through March of 24. He then had a really major episode at the Florida State Hospital, We called and talked to the psychiatrist.
The following Tuesday, they did a competency review meeting for Jonathan and sent him back to jail. So Jonathan went there end of October. And in March of this year, he ended up going back to the state hospital. And that's where he is right now. In Florida, there are six state hospitals.
And in the forensic unit of the six state hospitals, their charge is to get the patient or the client competent to stand their charges and return them to the court. He did not get mental health treatment. He got mental health maintenance with drugs that were not working and then judged to be competent.
This sounds like it didn't help your son at all. where he was bouncing around from place to place. Add to that not getting the medication that he needed to get better.
The CEO of the local... psychiatric hospital told me personally over the phone, he said, absolutely. Jonathan became a problem child to the hospital, and they judged him competent and returned him to jail. It's the jail's problem. So we went through that whole process. And Jonathan now, since October of this year, October 30 of this year, was sent to civil hospital in Tallahassee.
And that's where he's been since. You'll be interested in this. I am participating. The governor of the state of Florida appointed a commission on mental health and substance abuse reform. The governor appointed six members. The Senate president did six, and the Speaker of the House did six.
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Chapter 7: What legal and judicial obstacles did Jack face trying to get Jonathan hospitalized?
The members of the committee are CEOs of major mental hospitals in the state of Florida, chief circuit court judges, sheriffs, and some college professors. That's the commission. Then they have a number of subcommittees. And because of sunshine laws, I don't have access to all the members to have conversations if I'm a part of a subcommittee. So I refuse to be a part of subcommittees.
I attend all the meetings. I attend all the subcommittee meetings. The CEO of the hospital where Jonathan is today is the chairman of Governor DeSantis' Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse. And I know him personally. So it's a networking deal with my involvement that got Jonathan where he is.
I guess the big question is, how is he doing? With all this bouncing around, has he gotten any better?
He is as sick today as you and I speak as he was 10 years ago. They have him on Depakote and Seroquel, and they just put him on Haldol, and then they increased to Haldol a second time. And he is just absolutely bonkers. So I've written letters. I can send you a couple of letters I gave them that are pretty descript and said, why not try clozapine and why not try the new med called Cabenfi?
Those are the two golden standard pills that are out there today. Clozapine is considered a last resort pill. And I'm saying, what is a last resort pill? What does Jonathan have to do in order to get one of those?
What's the reasoning they wouldn't give it a shot and at least try it?
It's a difficult bed to manage in the psychiatric industry. By and large, they don't like to administer the drug. So what's in the best interest of Jonathan is not necessarily in the best interest of the hospital. That's what's going on.
With everything that you've been going through and he's been going through, what do you see that needs to be changed so that this can get better for not just yourself, but for everybody involved in this system?
I believe, Tony, that the problem with mental health care in the country, for that matter, but in Florida and specifically locally, is a management issue. It's not a talent issue. The law enforcement officers are very good at what they do. The attorneys are good at what they do. The prosecutor, the state attorney is good at what he does or she. Defenders are good at what they do.
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Chapter 8: What was Jonathan's experience in jail and how was his mental health evaluated?
This is a frequent thing that I hear from everyone I speak with. It's a really tough thing to deal with. I don't know how you do it. What are your thoughts on how this can be fixed?
The business side of me, Tony, the professional business side of me, says you can't shoot the mental health carrier if they don't have the staff and they can't get the staff. And all of the mental health facilities in all of the country, really, but primarily I'm here in Florida, are understaffed with underqualified people. The qualified people that are still there burn out and quit.
They get replaced with lower quality people. And so it's the Pythagorean theorem. It's Murphy's Law. Whatever will go wrong will go wrong. I am proposing that it's a management problem. I'm proposing that the local sheriff, the local prosecutors and local public defenders and the local mental health care facilities and the local courts all know what's broken.
They all know that the jail is 60% loaded with people that should be in mental health facilities, not the jail. Everybody knows it. The idea that I came up with is the governor of the state of Florida should appoint a committee, appoint a team at the local level in a county and say to them, I am going to eliminate all rules. There are none.
No civil liberty rules, no HEPA rules, no financial rule, nothing. And you guys go out there and I want in six months or a year on my desk, I want you to show me whether it's working. I am proposing that we already have the money to do what's right. The problem is that the money is being spent in the jail.
Well, we can't move all the people, the 60 people that are in the jail, can't be moved into a mental health facility. We don't have any beds.
What do you propose in a situation like that?
We have a jail, so take that floor over. Take that floor over and move everybody into mental health and tell the police and the courts and the CEOs of the jail, go work someplace else. The money is already there. We need to do team ball. We need to play team ball. It's like a football team. where you have a wide receiver that says, I won't block. I'm not going to block because I could get hurt.
And there's nobody saying, well, on this particular play, you are going to block. Well, when you have a coach, the coach will say, yeah, you're going to block here. And if you don't, we'll have a new receiver. This is how we're going to play ball. Nobody's doing that.
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