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Trumbull sheriff probes stabbing of nurse by jail inmate
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
The Trumbull County sheriff says he will be reviewing the circumstances surrounding the stabbing of an emergency room nurse by a jail inmate.
Sheriff Thomas Altiere said the parties involved will be interviewed to learn more about the actions taken Aug. 28 by Deputy Anthony Diehl when he heard a scream coming from an examination room at St. Joseph Warren Hospital emergency room and entered to see Danielle M. Johnson, 35, of Youngstown, holding a blood-drawing needle to the neck of the nurse.
In a police report, Diehl said he stepped between the two women and was about to use his stun gun on Johnson but realized he had no stun-gun cartridges.
He “kicked the suspect several times so she would release the needle,” he said. Johnson dropped the needle and was taken into custody.
The nurse said Johnson stabbed her while the nurse was trying to draw a blood sample from Johnson. Johnson grabbed the needle and put it in the nurse’s neck, according to the police report.
The nurse, 44, did not suffer a serious injury, and a test indicated the nurse did not acquire a disease from the needle, Altiere said.
Diehl had taken Johnson to the hospital from the Trumbull County jail because she was suffering seizures, Diehl’s report said. But Diehl was outside the examination room contacting a fellow officer, and Johnson was no longer handcuffed at the time of the stabbing, the report says.
Altiere said Diehl had been issued a new stun gun two weeks earlier, and an officer is responsible for making sure he has cartridges available. Also, kicking a suspect is not a usual way to apprehend someone “unless there is no other way,” the sheriff said.
It is preferable to have a female deputy accompany a female inmate to the hospital, but there was no female deputy available at the time, Altiere said.
Not-guilty pleas were entered Wednesday in Warren Municipal Court for Johnson to felonious assault and escape that were filed because of the stabbing. Bond of $100,000 was set.
When Diehl asked Johnson why she stabbed the nurse, Johnson said she was trying to escape “because nobody was helping her,” his report said.
Johnson had been in the jail on a misdemeanor falsification charge.