Crisis helper testifies maestro had ‘anger issues’ and outbursts that frightened his daughter

The Desmond deadliness exploration has listened from 3 of a doctors who saw Afghanistan fight maestro Lionel Desmond in a months before he killed his family and himself during their Nova Scotia home — though Tuesday it listened from another indicate of view: that of a nurses.

Crisis helper Heather Wheaten told a exploration that nurses will infrequently get a opposite perspective of a patient than physicians, since patients — generally former soldiers — see a alloy as an management figure.

As Judge Warren Zimmer hopes to make recommendations to forestall serve deaths, like those during a heart of this deadliness inquiry, he’s looking during either there were gaps as someone changed from troops caring to a municipal health-care system. 

Wheaten’s testimony suggested there were.

Desmond, who suffered from post-traumatic highlight disorder, spent some-more than dual months though any therapy as he waited for Veterans Affairs to arrange for it circuitously his home in Upper Big Tracadie, N.S., on returning from an in-patient module in Montreal.

The “worsening of PTSD symptoms,” according to Wheaten, pushed him and his wife, Shanna, to a puncture room during St. Martha’s Regional Hospital in Antigonish, N.S., on Oct. 24, 2016, as a final review to get therapy.

Wheaten spoke with them both, with Shanna — also a psychiatric helper — appearing to conduct and disciple for her husband’s care, she said. Desmond himself seemed “downcast and unkempt” and spoke of carrying increasingly heated nightmares, night sweats, small appetite, highlight and depression.

Domestic violence

The exploration has also been asked to examine either a municipal clinicians who saw Desmond were lerned to commend a symptoms of post-traumatic highlight commotion and domestic violence.

Both join in this case.

The exploration listened final week about Desmond’s one-night stay in sanatorium dual months later. He was released on Jan. 2, 2017, a day before he killed his wife, his 10-year-old daughter, Aaliyah, and his mother, Brenda, during thee home where he’d been vital before his mom asked him to leave on New Year’s Eve.

When Wheaten saw him roughly dual months before that, she helped a integrate make a devise to understanding with Desmond’s “anger issues.”

“I remember [Shanna] articulate about how there was an occurrence where [her husband] had banged his palm … on a list and Aaliyah was in a room,” she testified.

“I remember that [Shanna] pronounced that ‘I took [my daughter] aside and we explained to her that Daddy wasn’t insane during her, that he was only feeling undone and indignant and it didn’t have anything to do with her.'”

Wheaten testified that she told a integrate this kind of poise “wasn’t healthy” and pronounced she asked Shanna if she had support nearby. Desmond pronounced that if he felt his “frustration building,” he would go outward and work on a plan to cold down.  

Hospital visits

Desmond would uncover adult during a puncture room during St. Martha’s sanatorium dual other times. In one case, on Dec. 1, 2016, he left after several hours though being seen. 

On Jan. 1, 2017, he spent a night there. He’d shown adult in crisis after his mom had asked him to leave a night before following another instance of Desmond yelling for hours and smashing furniture  

Although he was kept overnight, a psychiatrist who expelled Desmond told a exploration there were no signs he would mistreat himself or anyone else.

But justification already presented suggests a nurses might have seen a opposite chronicle of Desmond that night, one who slept feeble and was restless. They wrote about that in his chart, a exploration has heard, though Dr. Faisal Rahman — a psychiatrist who saw him — didn’t review it again before releasing Desmond. 

Those nurses began testifying Tuesday afternoon.

Article source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/desmond-day-9-1.5459305?cmp=rss