Former Lowell General Hospital nurse believes attacker will have charges dropped

A man accused of attacking a nurse on the job with a fire extinguisher will face a judge Tuesday for a bench trial.

“Sometimes patients will raise their voice or get upset or if I hear like loud bangs or things I do jump and I do get, I get sweaty, I get anxious I feel my heart race,” said Grace Rabickow, the victim in this case.

Rabickow lives with the effects of getting assaulted on the job, every day.

She’s now a nurse in Boston but was brutally attacked by a patient in 2021 while working at Lowell General Hospital’s Saints Campus.

“Just documenting on my computer not really thinking of anything and then all of a sudden I was like oh my God, I have such a bad headache, oh my gosh, so I like raised my hand and then the next thing I know it was black,” said Rabickow.

Rabickow blacked out and later learned a psychiatric patient hit her over the head with a fire extinguisher - twice.

“Was able to come up behind me, pause for a second and then baseball swing it once to the right side of my head and then once to the left side of my head,” said Rabickow.

She was sent to the ICU with a fractured skull and brain bleed.

Now years later, the man who attacked her is finally heading back to court Tuesday for a bench trial, but Rabickow worries the charges may be dropped if he pleads insanity.

“Devastated and heartbroken, I understand psychiatric illness I worked with it for many years, but even if somebody has a psychiatric illness it doesn’t excuse what they do, it doesn’t excuse this,” said Rabickow.

“And for him to be able to just walk away from this with no guilty verdict is atrocious.”

According to court documents Jean Paul Durand was homeless at the time of this assault.

He also spent time at Bridgewater State Hospital for a mental illness.

Rabickow was hoping for closure and justice from this trial, not only for her, but for all nurses.

“That’s not okay for somebody to go into their workplace and just think that it’s okay to get assaulted like that just because of where they work,” said Rabickow.

The trial for Durand is set for 9 AM Tuesday at Lowell District Court.

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