Kevin Kelly, a psychiatric nurse, was one of three nurses stabbed by a patient as they tried to return him to St Ita's Hospital in Portrane on July 9th, 1993.
The man had left the hospital earlier in the week and had refused to return. Escorted by two gardaí, the three nurses entered the patient's house in Artane. They went upstairs to his bedroom while the gardaí waited downstairs.
"He just lunged out at them," a garda said afterwards. One nurse was stabbed in the heart while another was hit in the arm. Mr Kelly (43) was stabbed with a six-inch knife five times. The most serious stab perforated his lung.
"I remember the excruciating pain as I became more and more breathless," he told a newspaper afterwards. "I thought if I went to sleep, I'd never wake up."
He spent three days in intensive care in Beaumont Hospital in north Dublin. "If we hadn't been so close to Beaumont, we wouldn't have survived it," he said yesterday.
Some 4½ months later, Mr Kelly returned to work. He fought hard to recover, saying he wanted to prove to himself that he could still do the work. The Psychiatric Nurses Association fought for the payment of the nurses' full salary while they were on sick leave but, nine years on, they have not received compensation for their pain and suffering.
"A compensation scheme would make a huge difference," Mr Kelly says.
He still works with St Ita's Hospital but is now based in the community.
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