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The stabbing of a woman prison officer when she and other guards intervened in a fight in Upper Hutt's Rimutaka Prison has led to renewed calls to beef up officers' protection.
The woman was stabbed in the back with a what has been reported to be a sharpened bucket handle when she and other officers tried to break up the attack.
The makeshift weapon was earlier used on an inmate, who suffered stab wounds to the back and torso and sustained a punctured lung.
Corrections Association president Beven Hanlon said it would be several months before tests could clear the officer of disease from the Thursday afternoon attack and she was likely to be off work for some time.
The Corrections Department is helping the police with an investigation into the stabbing but is refusing to comment further.
Mr Hanlon told National Radio today that "as happens in jails at times, a number of prisoners decided to attack another prisoner and the staff did their job, as they do ... got involved".
The attack involved at least four people stabbing the prisoner, he said.
"By getting involved the staff members got injured themselves, one staff member was stabbed in the back, another sustained suspected broken ribs and another one strained their hand.
"Basically they saved this prisoner's life, if they hadn't got involved these prisoners wouldn't have stopped stabbing ..."
Mr Hanlon said it had been a particularly nasty prison fight.
"Nine out of 10 times when a corrections officer gets involved that generally is enough to break it up," he said.
Prisoners had a great deal of ingenuity in making weapons.
" You can make a stabbing device out of anything, chop bones from the tea, toothbrushes -- that's quite a common one to be stabbed with -- when it comes to making weapons and when it comes to hiding contraband they (prisoners) are very, very skilled," Mr Hanlon said.
"They've got all day to think about these things, so they spend a bit of time dedicating themselves to coming up with cunning plans and those sorts of things."
He said the association would be repeating its call to the department for other options.
"When we're searching for a weapon that we know has been used to stab someone we should have stab-proof vests on, we should have protective clothing to protect us against a known hazard," he said.
"In that sort of situation (Thursday's stabbing) if we had the use of tear gas we could have deployed it in the wing, because it was a closed wing. Yes, there would have been people who weren't involved getting sore eyes, but that's the extent of it and it would have stopped the attack right there and then and our members wouldn't have had to go in and get stabbed."
In November, after a hostage drama at Paremoremo Prison, Mr Hanlon called for a review of officers' safety.
"What we're saying is let's start talking about the different tools that are available to all the other corrections officers everywhere else in the world," he said at that time.
Mr Hanlon said just about every day a prison officer was assaulted in some way, with someone being hurt badly enough to be admitted to hospital at least once a month.
For protection a corrections officer "carries his cotton uniform and his wit", he said.
Mr Hanlon explained that at present corrections officers had a six-week training course -- one week of that was how to use force.
Corrections officers wanted things like pepper spray held in guard rooms in case it was needed.
- NZPA
