Disability Advocates Fight Ruling Allowing Electric Shock Treatment Back In Mass. Residential...

She never thought that in 2002, her child would be restrained by multiple staffers, tied to a gurney and shocked 31 times. His punishment for misbehaving — staffers’ justification for administering the shocks — left him catatonic.

The video of the incident, which went viral in 2012, documents a panicked Andre screaming in pain and pleading with the workers to stop shocking him.

The footage remains traumatic for McCollins to hear, but she wants people to listen in order to spread her message against electric shock therapy and the Judge Rotenberg Center.

As of last month, the Judge Rotenberg Center will continue to be the only school, hospital or residential facility in the U.S. allowed to use electric shock as a therapy for its residential students with cognitive and emotional disabilities.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a ban on the procedure in 2020 — but a federal appeals court judge overturned it in July saying it exceeded the FDA's authority.

The ruling is the latest chapter in a decades-long battle between disability activists, parents and former students who call the treatments traumatizing and abusive, and a group of parents and administrators who say the shocks are a life-saving last resort to "correct aggressive or self-harming behavior in adults and children."