By Rick Sobey
Boston Herald
BOSTON — The local prison guard who was knocked unconscious and ended up in the hospital has shared his “scary” story, stressing that the state needs to stop drugs from flowing into correctional facilities.
Officer John Connelly is still recovering from the traumatic incident at MCI-Shirley last month when he was exposed to a toxic substance and rushed to the hospital.
This latest ordeal involving an injured correction officer comes as the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union continues to fight for safer conditions inside Bay State prisons.
On July 20, Connelly had been attending to an unresponsive inmate in their cell.
“It was pretty bad,” Connelly recalled about the inmate episode in a union video. “He wasn’t even responding to anything that we were saying to him.”
The prison guard then looked down at the inmate’s sock and saw a package: A piece of paper was wrapped up in a square. Connelly opened it up, and believed it was the synthetic drug K2. He saw some white residue, and quickly closed it up.
Connelly then remembers telling his partner that he was feeling weak.
” ‘I don’t have my legs. I don’t really feel that strong,’ ” he recalled saying.
As the correction officer was checked out, he got really hot and sweaty.
“I fell out of it,” Connelly said. “I don’t really remember anything after that… I could just feel my heart going crazy and then my mind started going crazy, and I don’t remember anything after that.”
He then woke up in the hospital, and was very confused. The doctor told him that he was going to be OK, but that it would take some time to recover.
“I was in pretty bad shape,” Connelly said, noting that he had multiple seizures.
This is the second time that the prison guard has been exposed to toxic substances while on duty, the previous time happening in 2018. This recent incident was definitely worse, he said.
“It’s scary because it’s really affecting me pretty bad,” Connelly said, adding that he was soon heading to see his neurologist to schedule an MRI for his head. “I just break out in uncontrollable shakes sometimes.”
“It’s hard to deal with my mental health right now,” he said, noting that he was given Narcan four times during the incident.
Connelly has a baby girl who he wants to pick up “but at the same time, I don’t want to drop her.”
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In the union video, he was asked whether he feels safe at work.
“That’s a tough question, man, after what just happened,” Connelly said. “Sometimes yeah, but we work in a very dangerous environment, and I know sometimes we can be subject to this. But I just wish there was more precaution because I don’t want this happening to anyone else, because it’s not alright, it’s really not.
“I just wish we were more proactive on the drugs that are inside,” he said, later adding, “We go to serve and protect every day. We put our lives on the line because it’s not only about our safety, it’s about the people, the inmates that live in the institutions around the state. Their families are trusting us to make sure that they do their time and they get out.”
Following Connelly’s hospitalization and a reported string of similar incidents, the public safety union is urging the Massachusetts Department of Correction to implement an “exposure policy” for when officers are exposed to synthetic drugs and chemicals, including fentanyl and K2.
“Let’s try to get all hands on deck to kind of combat this,” Connelly said. “And let’s keep fighting, and let’s just keep climbing until we find something that works for both sides.”
The state agency should launch weekly or regularly rotating institutional shake downs, cell and block searches and deploy its canine department, the union president said previously.
“I will not let one of our members become a fatal statistic before the DOC leadership decides to act and work with this union to address these major safety issues,” said Dennis Martin , president of the union. “Leadership is expected to make decisions.
“Currently, there’s a void at the DOC,” he added. “Neither our members nor inmates are safe inside Massachusetts prisons. As your president, I am asking the DOC leadership to implement a policy that will protect the courageous men and women of this union.”
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