A psychiatric expert said California authorities were fearful actress Mischa Barton might have ended up dead within 24 hours when they decided to hospitalize her under the state’s involuntary psychiatric-hold law Wednesday afternoon.
“It’s a 24-hour standard for these statutes,” said Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and FOX News contributor. “You have to ask yourself, ‘Would this person die in the next 24 hours?’ They have to be at the brink of complete disaster.”
Online Gossip article on July 8, 2009 a week before hospitalization