Nurses Step Up Efforts to Protect Against Workplace Assaults - NYTimes.com

Nurses Step Up Efforts to Protect Against Workplace Assaults - NYTimes.com: "Nurses Step Up Efforts to Protect Against Attacks
Gerald Slota



By DAVID TULLER
Published: July 8, 2008

Karen Coughlin, a psychiatric nurse in Taunton, Mass., remembers the evening four years ago when her 14-year-old son asked her if any patients had tried to kill her that day.
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“I was astounded, but he was serious because he’d heard about co-workers going to the hospital for injuries,” Ms. Coughlin said. “I’ve been hit, I’ve been kicked and spit on. I’ve had a knife pulled on me. I love what I do and many of the patients I work with, but I don’t love the conditions I work in.”

Three years ago, an enraged patient — 6 feet 4 inches and 275 pounds — smacked another patient, bit a health aide, threatened to kill Ms. Coughlin and lunged forward to strike"