An Ashfield, MA nursing assistant has been charged with assault and battery on a person over 60 or disabled. Garrett C. Crehan, 42, allegedly forced a 61-year-old patient at the Veterans Affairs Central Western Massachusetts Healthcare System psychiatric ward in Leeds onto the ground, causing his nose to bleed. He also is accused of holding him down in a bed by pinning and twisting the patient’s arms behind his back, kneeing him in the ribs multiple times, and threatening to kill him.
The alleged patient assault is said to have occurred in January. The following month, three members of the hospital’s nursing staff said they’d witnessed the incident and considered Crehan’s actions patient abuse. Court documents, however, indicate that when a police officer arrived on the scene right after the actual incident, none of the staff members mentioned that an assault had taken place.
The patient, who agreed to write a statement about the alleged incident, said that a staff member twisted his arm and called him a derogatory word for a disabled person. He said that the incident has affected him.