A drunken patient assaulted an intern doctor in the head with a metal tray at the emergency room (ER) of Gumi Cha Hospital in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province.

At around 4 a.m. Tuesday, the intoxicated university student visited the ER along with a senior student to treat abrasions on the face and lacerated scalp. Both of them were severely drunk and wounded in a fight at a bar.

To treat the student, medical workers tried to do a CT scan, but he refused to cooperate. He walked around the ER with his top undressed and spat on the floor.

The intern picked up his clothes from the floor to give them back to the student and returned to the nurse station to write down the results of primary physical examinations (inspection, palpation, and percussion) in the medical record book.

The nurse station is stained with blood at the emergency room of Gumi Cha Hospital in Gumi, North Gyeongsang Province, Tuesday. (Credit: Korean Medical Association)

At that time, the drunken student grabbed a blood sample tray at the corner of the ER, hit the intern’s head behind his back, and disappeared into the lobby of the hospital.

The medical trainee suffered a laceration of about 2 centimeters on the occipital region of the head, a torn scalp, and a ruptured artery, which led to severe hemorrhage. After receiving first aid from fellow medical staffs, the intern was hospitalized to receive further treatment at the neurosurgery department.

The attacker who ran to the lobby was arrested on the spot by a police officer. The student had threatened other patients at the hall but behaved himself after the police officer pulled out a stun gun.

The student reportedly received treatment for facial injuries at the ER of nearby Soonchunhyang University Hospital Gumi and moved to the police station.

Due to the intern-attacking incident, Gumi Cha Hospital could not treat other three urgent patients for about an hour.

“The attack was so sudden that the intern did not even know how he was hit,” said Choi Seung-pil, a professor of emergency medicine at Gumi Cha Hospital. “The drunkard who fled to the lobby was threatening other patients. If the police came a little late, other patients could have been in danger.”

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