Stock image of a taser. INQUIRER FILES
SYDNEY, Australia — Australian police confirmed Friday that one of its officers tasered a 95-year-old woman in her nursing home, leaving her in a “critical condition” in hospital with a head injury.
Officers were deployed to the residence on Wednesday, May 17, after being alerted that the woman was “armed with a knife,” New South Wales state police said in a statement.
“Police attempted to speak to the woman,” they said in a statement.
“During this interaction, a senior constable discharged his taser, causing the woman to fall and strike her head,” it added.
“The officer’s duty status is under review.”
It was the first confirmation by police that they used a taser on the resident, identified by local media as Clare Nowland, a great-grandmother with dementia.
READ: Dementia: When friends, family become strangers
Ambulance paramedics treated the woman and took her to Cooma District Hospital, where she is in a “critical condition,” police said.
On the day of the tasering at Yallambee Lodge, police said only that she had “sustained injuries during an interaction with police at an aged care facility.”
READ: Number of people with dementia set to jump 40% to 78 million by 2030 – WHO
A team including homicide squad officers had opened a “critical incident investigation,” which will include “the discharge of a taser” police said.
The probe is subject to independent review.
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph newspaper said Nowland, a mother of eight, was found in her walking frame holding the knife when police were called to the home.
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