Hospital ‘shooter’ trusted me, says nurse
“YOU are brave, you are the only one that has come in here.”
So said a gun-toting man to New Somerset Hospital nurse Sr Diane Seale, who managed to disarm him after he he allegedly shot and and killed two patients and wounded police constable Donay Phillips, who later also succumbed to his wounds.
Ahead of International Nurses Day commemorated today, Seale recalled the moments she managed to calm down the former cop Jean Paul Malgas.
On Saturday evening, May 7, she was busy with her routine handover process when a call was received by a colleague in distress.
“I could hear her screaming and my colleague who had answered the phone informed me that there was an altercation on the second floor.”
Seale told her colleague that she should carry on with her work while she attended to it.
“As I entered the second floor, I noticed a body on the floor in the corridor, but my eye caught the patient with the gun in his hand.
“I proceeded to walk straight to him, made eye contact. I walked towards him, and I hugged him. I escorted him into the cubicle. “He told me to close the door. “That also afforded our staff to then attend to the policeman who had been shot.
“I felt I could calm him down a bit. “Although I had noted two patients had been shot and were deceased, there were still two patients that were alive that I needed to save. I kept him seated, standing in front of him, so that these patients were kept out of harm’s way.
“I did not want to take my eyes off him. I kept on telling him that we needed to talk.
“I dealt with him as a person. I wasn’t focused on what he had done or might still do. I asked him, ‘What happened?’ I reached out and touched him, and he allowed me to. This gave me confidence and I knew that he trusted me.
“He looked at me while my hands were still on his shoulders and said, ‘You are brave, you are the only one that has come in here.’
Seale recalled how she asked him several times to put the gun down.
“I took him to my chest, held him close and he again allowed me to hold him. At least I knew there was this rapport was between us.”
During this exchange, Seale was unaware that the tactical unit had arrived and were armed and ready outside the cubicle doors.
“My main goal was to isolate him away from other staff and patients.
“He eventually agreed, and while remaining seated I moved to the cubicle doors and then became aware that the tactical team were outside.
“I believed that I had some control over the situation.
“There were some moments the perpetrator and I engaged in conversation, and I could even crack a joke.
“If he spoke to me, I allowed him that opportunity, but I would always come back to the request to put the gun down. During our exchanges I lifted his face and said, ‘Do you see this uniform? I am here to save life and limb.’ Eventually he agreed for me sedate him. Through it all, I sat with him, stroking his forehead until he was finally sedated.
“At this point I could call the tactical team to subdue him. When I walked out, everyone was there. My team was there and safe. This gave me that encouragement I needed to push on.”
Seale immediately engaged with her team and embarked on debriefing the nurses as well as patients.
Metropolitan counselling services, Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital psychosocial support and the Western Cape Health and Wellness team were all on site to offer support.