New York Daily News – by Jason Molinet
A hospitalized patient went on a rampage at a Minnesota hospital on Sunday, attacking four nurses with a metal pole before being tased, wrestled to the ground and then dying while cuffed in the street three blocks away.
The violent attack, caught on surveillance video released to the public on Thursday, shows Charles Emmett Logan, 68, of St. Paul, Minn., wildly swinging a metal pole that he took from his hospital bed at St. John’s Hospital, Twin Cities.com reported.
“Virtually every element of this is tragic,” Maplewood Police Chief Paul Schnell told Twin Cities.com.
“Certainly for the man himself, and we still don’t really know what happened to him. Second, for his family, obviously, he was someone’s dad, brother, uncle, cousin and then, of course, for the nursing staff who were just going about doing their work. … Folks knew he was struggling, but I don’t think anyone expected this would end in violence.”
Logan had been hospitalized with episodes of confusion and paranoia when he snapped and went after hospital staff at 2 a.m., according to KARE.
The video shows Logan surprise a nurses station filled with staffers. He’s seen making forceful overhead swings with the object in wood-chopping fashion. Health care workers scatter, but not before four nurses are injured, police said.
Leslie Lichey, 40, Brooke Scott, 22, Nicole Eenisse, 32, and Kelly Roberto, 30, were hurt in the incident and suffered a range of injuries, from a collapsed lung and fractured wrist to cuts and bruises, KSTP reported.
Ramsey County Sheriff’s deputies responded to the attack and chased down Logan, by now outside the Maplewood, Minn. hospital.
An attempt to Taser Logan failed before an officer tackled the man. Logan was handcuffed and then became unresponsive. He was taken back to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Making the whole episode more tragic is that Logan was not considered a violent person, Schnell said.
“This was very out of character,” Schnell told Twin Cities.com. “We’re talking about like a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy.”
jmolinet@nydailynews.com Follow on Twitter @jmolinet
So what kind of dope did they give him? He just ….died….? That’s two questions that just popped into my gourd.
“Logan had been hospitalized with episodes of confusion and paranoia when he snapped and went after hospital staff at 2 a.m.”
Another Big Pharma ‘success’ story.