Dying patient had to be evacuated because of Raigmore Hospital bomb hoax, court told

A jury has heard how three wards had to be evacuated after a hoax caller phoned the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Raigmore Hospital warning them a bomb had been planted in the unit.

The jury heard today one patient, who was dying, had to be moved from a cancer ward to safety.

Another patient in the ICU who was on kidney dialysis had to be taken off dialysis and a ventilator and put on a hand held oxygen supply during the evacuation.

Another senior manager said the hoax had an impact on the entire operation of the hospital.

The trial heard How Gareth Benbow, who allegedly made the call, had overdosed regularly on drugs and turned up at the ICU nineteen time between January and August of last year making demands on doctors to provide him with morphine for a knee complaint.

Benbow, (33), whose is on bail but whose address on court papers appeared as HM Prison, Inverness has denied between January 1 and August 24, 2013 behaving in a threatening manner at the hospital shouting offensive remarks at staff and making the hoax bomb threat call to the ICU.

Senior Staff Nurse Mary Hendry, (57), was duty manager at the ICU on the day the hoax call came in.

She said she was not a voice expert but she thought the voice was that of Benbow who she had treated on the ward.

She described how the call came in about 4.15pm and the caller said: "You have 20 minutes to evacuate the ward. There is a bomb about to go off."

"It was a very frightening moment," said Ms Hendry. "I took a note of what he had said and phoned the switchboard to get the duty manager and the police."

Describing the voice she told depute Fiscal Roddy Urquhart. "It was an English male voice, quite softly spoken. Possibly a West country voice. It was similar to Mr Benbow’s voice which I had heard before."

The trial had been told earlier by consultant anaesthetist Dr Alexander Hunter that Benbow was admitted to the unit 19 times between January and August after overdosing on drugs.

He had to be ventilated and when he came round he would become abusive to staff in the unit.

He said he personally had treated Benbow five or six times. He was demanding that he should get injections of morphine at home to manage his pain.

"There had been a pattern where he would come in having overdosed. He would take his own drugs."

The doctor said it was necessary to put him on a ventilator and before he was discharged the drugs would have worn off. That was when he became abusive.

"He shouted he was going to get me. It was a physical threat I suppose. There was a patient with a heart condition upset by the shouting and abuse."

He said the language being used by Benbow when he was admitted was abusive.

"Patients stated it should not be allowed and was unacceptable."

Mrs Hendry in her evidence said Benbow showed no signs of conscience that other people were affected by his behaviour when he was in the unit.

When she received the hoax bomb threat she was reluctant to give Benbow’s name to police because of her fears about patient confidentiality.

Describing the evacuation of the unit she said: "It was a very stressful and onerous task. It was not a decision that was taken lightly."

There were eight patients in the unit and all were attached to machines.

"One was on life support and kidney dialysis. That patient had to be evacuated and given breath through a manual bag. We evacuated them to the recovery room and one was taken to high dependency and one to coronary care."

They were allowed to return to the unit after about an hour following a police search which gave the all clear.

Duty manager William MacLeman was off duty when he received a call at home about the bomb threat.

The police advice was to evacuate the children’s ward below and a cancer ward above. One of the cancer patients who had to be moved had just days to live, he said.

"But it had a knock on effect over the entire hospital," he said.

Staff Nurse John Ritchie, (54), said he had been involved in caring for Benbow about six times. He said he would come in and would have to be ventilated to get the drugs he had taken out of his system.

"He was verbally aggressive to everybody and anybody, intimidating using vulgar language threatening saying things like ‘I’ll get you for negligence. Your not giving me my morphine’."

Mr Ritchie said staff had to apologise on occasions to families sitting grieving with dying patients.

"I told him to show some dignity and respect to a woman who was going to die within the next few hours. He replied: ‘ I don’t give a f..."

The trial continues.

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