An aggressive hospital patient – high on cocaine and booze – lost part of his hand after being Tasered and leaping from a window.
Patients and staff at Southport hospital were left terrified by Alan McClean’s erratic behaviour, which included roaming around the premises in a threatening manner and twice jumping out of a window.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that before his leap, which left him with life-changing injuries, a police officer was forced to Taser him but it had no effect and he ripped the barbs from his torso.
PC Darren Regan Tasered him again but again to no effect and McClean jumped out of the window severing an artery in his left wrist and injuring his hand.
He was chased and found to be trying to get into the rehabilitation room and making threats to staff and patients who had barricaded themselves in.
McClean, 40, lost a finger, a large part of his hand and was told he was lucky to be alive.
The court heard that McClean first turned up at the hospital on July 26 and was admitted for tests for stomach pains.
Police were later called to calm him down as he had become agitated and was walking up and down the ward frightening everyone.
At 9.50 am the next morning “he again became agitated and threatening and was roaming around causing fear and distress,” said Mr Bisarya.
He left the medical aid unit and after jumping out of the window in the physiotherapy ward and then ran back round to the medical aid unit and was found in a small room where a terrified nurse was cowering against a table to keep away from him.
PC Regan and another member of staff saw McClean was displaying signs of extreme paranoia including saying that the officer was not real and refusing to calm down.
When he approached the officer and refused to step back he was Tasered twice before leaping from the window.
Mr Bisarya said: “He was bleeding heavily from his artery and it was believed if he did not receive immediate medical attention he might die.”
More police officers arrived and McClean was restrained. The nurse who had been trapped with him in the room was unable to return to work for several days because of anxiety.
When questioned McClean, who had taken cocaine and alcohol, said he had no recollection of the incident.
He said he had gone to a friend’s home in Croxteth for a few drinks and the next thing he woke up in hospital with his hand in a cast.
McClean, of Waddicar Lane, Melling, who has previous convictions including wounding, pleaded guilty to affray and was jailed for 16 months.
Judge Jonathan Foster, QC, said, “I don’t know what got into you that day, you cannot remember anything of it. The likelihood is you were high both on alcohol and cocaine, both of which you admitted you had taken. That day something went terribly wrong.”
John Rowan, defending, told the court that McClean had turned to drugs as a means of escape.
He lost almost a third of his hand as a result of the incident, partly because of gangrene and has voluntarily referred himself to a drugs rehabilitation team.
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Source: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/