Slain California hospital nurse was strangled

Why is it not alarming to most people to learn that nurses and healthcare personnel routinely run the risks of being brutalized?  In a profession about helping others, why is it excused that these helpers can be beaten, threatened, or even killed?

This article, from Action News 13 Ktnv, only underscores the need for stronger laws to protect nurses and other healthcare workers from danger.  These people have embarked on a mission to help others and should not receive brutality in return.

Let me know your thoughts on this topic after you read the article, won’t you?

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An autopsy has found that a psychiatric nurse who authorities say was killed by a mentally ill patient at Napa State Hospital was strangled to death.

The Napa County coroner says Tuesday that 54-year-old Donna Gross died of asphyxiation on Saturday in a hospital courtyard. The sheriff’s department says Gross was killed by 37-year-old Jess Willard Massey, who was arrested Sunday on suspicion of murder and robbery.

Sheriff’s Capt. Tracey Stuart says investigators found Gross’ jewelry and a pack of gum she had bought on her dinner break in Massey’s room. Also missing was less than $2 in cash that Gross was carrying.

Massey is scheduled to make his first appearance in court Tuesday.

Related articles

• Nurse ‘strangled at work’ (theage.com.au)
• New nurse law a landmark step (timesunion.com)
• Increasingly, nurses facing violence on the job (philly.com)
• Everett man jailed on charge he harassed nurse (skwillms.wordpress.com)