A registered nurse working night-shift at a nursing home when a police officer tasered a resident has said she was ‘very, very concerned’ when the weapon was used on the woman.
Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White shot his stun gun at great-grandmother Clare Nowland at Yallambee Lodge in the southern NSW town of Cooma in the early hours of May 17, 2023.
The 95-year-old hit her head on the floor when she fell and had an inoperable bleed on the brain, dying at Cooma Hospital a week later.
White, who says he acted lawfully under his duties as a police officer, returned to his NSW Supreme Court trial on Wednesday.
Registered nurse Rosaline Baker had been working at the aged-care home for just over two weeks when she called triple zero regarding Mrs Nowland.
She said she had previously tried to get Mrs Nowland out of three other residents’ rooms about 3am after the great-grandmother grabbed two steak knives and a jug of prunes from a kitchen.
White and acting Sergeant Jessica Pank arrived on the scene after two paramedics.
Senior Constable Kristian James Samuel White faced the NSW Supreme Court on trial for tasering a 95-year-old woman who died after sustaining an inoperable brain bleed
Clare Nowland, 95, died a week later after she was tasered at the Yallambee Lodge care home
They searched for the great-grandmother with Ms Baker, finding her in a treatment room.
When the 34-year-old senior constable pulled out his Taser, the nurse said she did not know what it was and was ‘kind of curious’.
‘In my years of experience as a nurse, almost 50 years, I’ve never seen anything like that,’ she told the court.
She then heard a loud noise and saw Mrs Nowland get hit.
‘I was very, very concerned when she was falling to the ground,’ Ms Baker said.
In video footage played on Tuesday, White could be seen shouting orders at Mrs Nowland as she shuffled forward while gripping a steak knife and her walker from within a treatment room.
‘You keep coming, you’re going to get tased,’ the officer told her before he fired.
Ms Baker described her feelings earlier that night when Mrs Nowland had raised a knife at her in the nursing home’s darkened corridors.
‘Were you scared or concerned when that knife was pointed at you?’ crown prosecutor Brett Hatfield SC asked.
‘No, I was concerned about her going around to other places and other rooms, that something could happen to other residents,’ she said.
Earlier on Wednesday, geriatrician Susan Kurrle told the jury she diagnosed Mrs Nowland with moderate to moderately severe dementia at the time she was tasered.
While still mobile on her four-wheeled walker, the 95-year-old would have been unable to understand what was happening around her or comply with instructions, she said.
Professor Kurrle said Mrs Nowland’s behaviour had escalated in the three months before her death.
‘She was constantly resistant to any changes or anything they asked her to do and she didn’t appear to understand,’ the expert said.
‘With hindsight, it’s very clear that the symptoms and signs were developing over that time.’
Registered nurse Rosaline Baker told the court she was ‘very, very concerned’ when White used the taser on Ms Nowland
Pictured, body cam footage showed police handcuffing Ms Nowland after she was tasered and fell to the ground, hitting her head
Mrs Nowland exhibited anti-social behaviour in early 2023, including taking residents’ food, trying to undress in social areas, disturbing residents in their rooms, wandering around in the cold and dark and refusing to accept staff assistance, the jury heard.
The court was played CCTV footage of three incidents at Yallambee Lodge in March and April 2023, when the 95-year-old physically lashed out, rammed one staff member with her walker and climbed an embankment and got stuck in a tree.
She was admitted to hospital on April 16 and prescribed the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal to calm her aggressive behaviour after punching and biting staff.
Under questioning by defence barrister Troy Edwards SC, Prof Kurrle admitted Mrs Nowland’s behaviour in the moments before she was tasered could have resulted from staff deciding to reduce the dosage of Risperdal two days before.
The trial continues on Thursday.
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