A patient receiving care at a Massachusetts hospital cut a nurse in the neck as she tried to adjust his oxygen tube Monday night, prosecutors said at the man's arraignment Tuesday.
David Nichols, a 76-year-old from Greenville, New Hampshire, was arrested at Heywood Hospital in Gardner after the attack about 8 p.m., Gardner police have said.
A person speaking on his behalf said Nichols has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer and is on hospice care, having been told he has six months to live. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf to charges of assault and battery with a deadly weapon and attempting to commit a crime.
The victim is a part of the nursing staff at the hospital, police said, and was taken to UMass Memorial Hospital in Worcester to be treated for a laceration. Her condition was not immediately known.
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In court, prosecutors said the nurse went in to adjust the oxygen tube on Nichols' nose when he grabbed her by the neck and cut her near the carotid artery, the vessel that supplies blood to the brain, with a pocket knife, but did not puncture the artery. Afterward, he was handcuffed to the bed.
Karen Coughlin, a retired nurse with the Massachusetts Nurse's Association, said she left the profession in part due to concerns about workplace violence.
"My heart goes out to that victim who will not only have to deal with the medical trauma of such an event, but the psychological trauma that these assaults cause," she said.
As a board member of the Association, Coughlin has been advocating for legislation to improve safety measures across the state.
"This is an issue that has become a crisis in our health care facilities within Massachusetts."
Nichols served time for an assault and spent a year in prison for driving under the influence in 1988, prosecutors said, part of a lengthy criminal history.
The man speaking for Nichols, who appeared from a hospital bed and was having a lawyer appointed by the court, said the suspect had not had court involvement since 1988, and noted that he's had five surgeries on his lungs. He is bed bound in addition to having an oxygen tube, he noted.
A judge set bail at $100,000 and ordered that Nichols be kept on house arrest, keeping from contacting the alleged victim, if he's released. Nichols is due back in court July 14.
