Involuntary commitment. Happened to a good friend of mine during a nasty divorce, the husband made up a suicidal story and my friend was committed without the court appointing her a lawyer to defend herself. She's struggling to get her rights back, it is apparently possible, but they're gone forever until you spend a lot of money on lawyers so it's true it's not strictly the case you can't get them back but they default to staying gone forever.
Just curious, but did this person have a history of emotional lability plus previous (voluntary) outpatient treatment?