Two women arrested in separate attacks on hospital security officers
DECATUR IL Jan 6, 2022 Sworn affidavits show that two women were arrested after unrelated outbursts of violence in the emergency room of HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital in Decatur.
In the latest incident, dating from the evening of Dec. 19, a 22-year-old woman is accused of attacking a hospital security guard when he confronted her about sleeping in the emergency room lobby.
The affidavit said the 64-year-old guard had approached the woman after being told by a nurse that the woman had “slept in the ER lobby the previous evening and and looked as though she was preparing to sleep in the ER lobby again.”
Police Officer Charles Lane, who signed the affidavit, said he watched a security video which showed what happened next: “In the footage I observed (the woman) pick up a chair and strike a vending machine,” explained Lane.
“She then immediately turns and throws the chair (at the guard), who appeared to have turned his head away from her. The chair strikes him on the front/left side of his body. (The guard) then picks up the chair and holds it in front of himself to defend himself from (the woman) who is observed picking up a second chair. She tries to hit him with the second chair, however he is able to block the blow with the chair he is holding.”
The battle is described as continuing before a second 63-year-old security officer arrives to help the first one. The woman is described as then hurling a chair at both security officers, which they parry with a chair they are holding, before the woman ceases her attacks. The 64-year-old guard tells police he is suffering from “pain in his side” after the assault.
The woman was arrested and booked on a preliminary charge of aggravated battery to a victim aged over 60; a check of Macon County Jail records Sunday showed she remained in custody with bail set at $10,000, meaning she must post a bond of $1,000 to be freed.
The second incidence of violence is listed by police as happening the night of Dec. 12. This time a 22-year-old female patient is described in a second police affidavit as punching and injuring a female emergency room nurse.
A male charge nurse then intervenes to try and control the patient who, police say, grabbed him by the neck and spat on him before biting his left hand.
“During a Mirandized interview with (the patient) she admitted to coming down from cocaine base ‘crack’ and being unsure of why she did what she did,” the affidavit said. Police said the woman told them she has a pending aggravated battery charge involving a nurse victim out of St. Clair County in Illinois.
She was booked on two new preliminary charges of aggravated battery to nurses, and the woman, who lists an address in Champaign, was freed on a recognizance bond Dec. 16.
