Medical staff took up to 15 minutes to reach a mental health patient after he hanged himself in his hospital room, an inquest heard yesterday.

A hearing into 35-year-old Shandal Richardson's death heard the claim from a fellow patient who was sharing a room with him on the night he died at the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute (MWI).

The 31-year-old man described how he saw Mr. Richardson's bed standing upright and him with one end of a bedsheet around his neck and the other tied to a bedpost in the early hours of March 5 last year.

"After I saw what happened, I ran to the door and was banging — I must have been there ten or 15 minutes," alleged the patient.

"I don't know if he was gone or whatever. When I saw him hanging there I ran to the door and was knocking but nobody came."

He added: "I was kicking and banging; hard, real hard. Nobody heard. I don't know if they were sleeping."

Later, during questioning from lawyer Allan Doughty, representing Bermuda Hospitals Board, the patient said he did not have a watch with him and did not time how long it took staff to arrive.

Victoria Pearman, the lawyer for Mr. Richardson's family, asked him: "Even though you didn't have a watch, you could tell you were banging and kicking on that door a long time?"

The patient replied: "Yes."

The inquest heard earlier that Mr. Richardson, a security guard, was deemed a suicide risk by an emergency room doctor at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital on March 4 after he tried to stab himself with a knife at his Scenic Hills, Southampton home.

He was admitted to the acute care Somers' Annexe at MWI later that day, with his wife Denise Richardson telling the Magistrates' Court hearing last week that he was supposed to stay at the mental health facility under observation for 72 hours.

She claimed her husband, who had previously been treated as a MWI outpatient and who was hearing voices in the weeks before his death, could not have committed suicide if he had been monitored properly.

Yesterday, Mr. Richardson's fellow patient told how he was woken up in the night by his roommate shifting his bed across the floor. "I was surprised none of the nurses heard it," said the patient. "It was pretty loud."

The patient described how he saw father-of-three Mr. Richardson raise his bed at a 90 degree angle straight up in the air. The patient said he himself got up and lowered it back to the floor and that it made a loud noise as he did so.

Coroner Juan Wolffe asked him whether he had any idea at that point of what Mr. Richardson was trying to do.

"The first time, yes," replied the patient. "I talked to him a little bit. I figured it was over because he weren't worrying about it."

Mr. Wolffe asked: "At that time, did you see it necessary to bang on the door and alert the attention of one of the nurses or somebody?"

The patient, who was at MWI with schizophrenia and depression, replied: "Not really." He added that Mr. Richardson seemed to calm down and lay back on his bed. "I never thought that he would get back up and do it again," he said.

At about 2 a.m., according to the patient, Mr. Richardson upturned his bed again and put one end of a sheet around his neck and the other around the end of the bed.

He said he "figured he was dead" and thought it best to get help. The man explained that there was no bell or buzzer in the room and banging on the door was the only way to alert staff at night.

"Eventually they will come but they take a long time," he said. "Seven minutes. Sometimes ten minutes, depending on how late at night it is. Maybe they are sleeping. I don't know."

Mr. Doughty later asked him if it was fair to say he wasn't always thinking straight at the time of the incident, due to his mental illness.

"I guess, yes," replied the patient. He agreed he was scared and in a panic when he began banging on the door.

He said nurse's aide Brendon Robinson, who no longer lives on the Island, eventually came to the room and an ambulance crew arrived very soon after. The inquest was adjourned until later this month.