A man, interned in a mental hospital north-east of Bucharest, attacked patients in the night from Saturday to Sunday. Four people were killed and nine others injured.

Four people were killed and nine wounded after being attacked by a sick man on Saturday night in a mental hospital north-east of Bucharest, Romanian media reported.

In the night, a 38-year-old man, voluntarily interned, entered a ward at Sapoca Hospital and beat patients there with an infusion rack. The latter, suffering from mental problems and dementia, could not react at the time of the attack.

Hit on the head, three of the victims died on the spot. A fourth, transferred to the emergency room in the nearby town of Buzau for head trauma, could not be saved by the doctors.

Two people in a coma

Among the nine wounded, two men are in a coma, the other seven were less seriously affected. The aggressor tried to flee but was arrested by a police officer of the medical unit and immediately placed in custody.

"It all happened in less than a minute," said director of the Sapoca psychiatric hospital, Vio rica Mihalascu. According to her, the attacker acted during an "acute psychotic episode".

"This patient was admitted with a normal level of surveillance, and the symptoms that he presented did not suggest that a disaster was going to happen," she told Antena 3.

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