Psychiatric nurse feared for his life

A PSYCHIATRIC nurse was savagely attacked by a mental hospital patient whose death is now being probed, an inquest heard yesterday.

Witness Tony Cormican said: “I feared for my life. Only for the intervention of my colleague, John Thompson, I might not be here today.”

The spontaneous attack by the deceased man — Gary Connell — was the worst violence Mr Cormican had suffered in 28 years’ at Dublin’s Central Mental Hospital (CMH).

Mr Cormican told Dublin City Coroner’s Court he had been a care officer at the mental hospital but no longer worked there.

He was attacked without warning in the bathroom, he said.

Mr Connell lunged forward jabbing his fingers into Mr Cormican’s face and eye — leaving the witness’s nose and eye bleeding.

John Thompson, who answered Mr Cormican’s shouts and screams for assistance, got Mr Connell into an headlock in the corridor, the witness said.

Other staff also got involved, he added.

Mr Cormican told the court he then went to get medical attention.

The deceased, Mr Connell, who was from the English midlands, had been admitted to the CMH two weeks before he died on September 12, 2001.

State Pathologist Dr Marie Cassidy told coroner Dr Brian Farrell and a jury that Mr Connell died of restraint asphyxia and inhalation of vomit.

A contributory factor may have been a heart defect. Although he was 35 years old, the deceased had a serious lesion in one of his coronary arteries.

When the previously adjourned inquest resumed yesterday, psychiatric nurse Brendan Cullen — who was jailed for four years, in June 2006, after pleading guilty to assault causing harm to Mr Connell — said he wished to be legally represented.

After adjourning the inquest to allow for legal consultations, Dr Farrell announced that all CMH staff — who had not been legally represented at the inquest — had previously been told by a lawyer that they were not entitled to legal representation.

“That is not correct,” said Dr Farrell, pointing out that witnesses were entitled to legal representation, though it was not essential.

Dr Farrell offered his sympathy to Mr Connell’s mother, Ms Chrissy Heap on the death of her son.

The coroner also expressed regret to Ms Heap and her partner Ray McHale, who had travelled from Britain, that the inquest would be adjourned.

“Issues have arisen. I am very sorry we can’t proceed today,” said Dr Farrell.

Later, Ms Heap told journalists Gary had been living in a Dublin hostel.

He phoned her the day before he died and he sounded OK and called her Mammy, “which was very Irish of him”.

He had had a relationship break-up, she said. When she heard he was going to the CMH, she felt he would get some help there — that he was put there for his own protection.

The inquest was adjourned until August 27 when it is expected to be completed in two days.