A female paramedic was seriously assaulted at Altnagelvin Hospital in Londonderry on Saturday while doing the thing she has done for 37 years: helping someone who needed medical assistance. Police said the attack occurred at about 17:45 GMT, and a suspect has been identified - presumably the patient being transported, since that's how these stories tend to go.

The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) said the paramedic sustained injuries to the back of her head, neck, face and hands, and is believed to have suffered concussion. The incident unfolded after NIAS received a call to provide medical assistance to a male patient who was being transported by ambulance to the hospital following initial treatment - a detail that makes the ensuing events even more dispiriting.

According to NIAS, the attack lasted a number of minutes. On arrival at the hospital, while the patient was being transferred from the stretcher to a chair, he delivered a punch to the face of one of the paramedics helping him. The force of the blow knocked her down and knocked her glasses off her face. The other paramedic tried as best she could to intervene but couldn't get into a proper position to help after the assailant also attempted to punch her. He then turned his attention back to the first paramedic and started a sustained attack on her as she lay helpless.

Jenny Keane, chief executive of the NIAS, said she was "horrified and outraged" to hear of the assault. "This incident is particularly disturbing given that it was perpetrated by an adult male on a female paramedic, while her other female colleagues did what they could to help," she said. "This was a sustained assault on a paramedic who has a career of over 37 years, caring for her local community. Although her physical injuries, of which there are many, may heal over the coming days and weeks, I would be concerned at the psychological and emotional impact this may have on her and others involved." Keane added that NIAS staff "must be free to go anywhere without the fear of being assaulted, quite simply for delivering care and compassion to someone they have been called to assist."

Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) Foyle assembly member Sinéad McLaughlin, who knows the paramedic personally, said she was "absolutely appalled by this vicious attack on a woman" and found the incident and the extent of the paramedic's injuries "deeply upsetting." "We cannot allow attacks on healthcare workers to become something that is simply accepted as part of the job," she said. "We need to send a clear message that this will not be tolerated, and the safety of our frontline workers must be a priority." A sentiment that, one might hope, shouldn't require stating - yet here we are.