Motives sought behind hospital patient’s suicide

Police and the management at the Greek capital’s Attiko Hospital continued on Tuesday to investigate the motives that drove a 59-year-old father of two to attack a nurse and then jump to his death from a fourth-floor window.

The incident occurred on Monday, while the 59-year-old patient was in recovery from surgery after he had been diagnosed with lung cancer on August 19.

Doctors at Attiko Hospital said the patient had been on sedatives at the time of the incident, as is customary with post-surgery recovery. His wife, meanwhile, told investigators that he had no history of mental illness but had been agitated as he believed he had been subjected to unnecessary surgery.

According to the timeline of events as investigators know it so far, the 59-year-old summoned a nurse to his sixth-floor room at 5 a.m. on Monday morning and grabbed her when she walked into the ward, threatening her with a small paring knife. Their scuffle spilled out into the corridor, where another patient and a nurse tried to subdue the 59-year-old after he smashed the nurse’s head into a wall and cut her with the knife.

He then ran down the fire escape to the fourth floor, where he jumped out of a window to his death.

The 59-year-old man has been identified only as an Albanian national who lived in Greece for the past 13 years.

The nurse, aged 37, is said to be recovering from minor injuries.