After speaking with a concerned parent, it was revealed that her 21-year-old son was admitted to the 109-bed Retreat Behavioral Health facility following an overdose on fentanyl. Cynthia Craig’s son was asked to leave Retreat on a Friday afternoon and take an Uber with another patient. After borrowing the Uber driver’s phone, he left a message for his mother, expressing urgency and asking her to pick him up when he calls back in 15 minutes. Craig was devastated and scared, not knowing where to find him.
Five days later, the facility abruptly closed, and Craig received a call informing her that her son had been transferred to a rehab facility in Miami. Despite this news, she remains worried about him being in an unfamiliar setting. Her son expressed his lack of trust and uncertainty about what to do in his current situation. When asked if he retrieved his belongings before leaving Retreat, he mentioned that staff were throwing items into dumpsters.
Efforts to reach out to Florida’s Department of Children and Families (DCF), which oversees facilities like Retreat Behavioral Health, have been ongoing for the past two days. We hope to determine the fate of all the patients affected by Retreat’s closure and whether they have been relocated. DCF’s press secretary stated that they are working on our request for information.
