SPRINGFIELD -- A Springfield nurse who was one of the first people to tend to the victim of a serious assault at the MGM Springfield casino last weekend says she could not believe the severity of the man's injuries -- or all the blood.

"When I ran over there, there was a huge amount of blood," she said, describing it as gushing from the man's head and pooling on the floor.

The woman, who cited privacy and safety concerns in asking not to be identified, said she didn't see the assault. But, she said: "The results of the attack were absolutely brutal. Absolutely brutal."

The Sunday afternoon incident left a 55-year-old man from New York with serious injuries to his head and face.

Police arrested a 27-year-old Springfield man, Devon Williams, and charged him with assault with intent to murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, a shod foot. Williams pleaded not guilty Monday in Springfield District Court.

According to police, Williams followed the New York man and his girlfriend into the casino, punched him in the face and then kicked him in the head.

The attack was unprovoked, police said.

A judge ordered Williams jailed until Sept. 17 dangerousness hearing that will determine whether he'll be granted the right to bail. Police said he is a suspect in other assaults earlier in the day, in different parts of the city.

The Republican reached out to the woman the day after the attack. She returned a call Friday afternoon, and agreed to an interview on the condition she not be identified.

She said she has 25 years experience in hospitals and private home care. The Republican verified her nursing license through state records.

On Sunday, she was at the casino with one of her clients, an older man in need of home care. The client wanted to go to the casino and she went along to look after him.

She said she had set him up on the gaming floor by the slot machines and was stepping away for a brief break.

As she approached the door leading to Main Street she saw a man fall over. At first she thought he had had too much to drink, or that he simply tripped.

Then she heard someone screaming. She ran toward him.

When she got to the man, she said it was clear he had not simply fallen down. There were signs of trauma to his face, she said, and it was covered in blood.

Police described his injuries as a large laceration to his forehead, a broken jaw and two fractured orbital bones, one over each eye.

The nurse said one of the man's eyes was hanging out of its socket.

"It was a horrible sight," she said.

She said she and a man in a suit jacket were the first to reach the injured man. She assumes the man in the jacket was an MGM employee. She called out for towels in order to compress the injuries and slow the blood loss. Within seconds, several towels were brought over, and she and the man in the jacket held the towels on the man's head until EMTs arrived.

The man was conscious, she said.



"He kept asking me what happened," she said. "And I couldn't tell him."

The screaming she heard was the injured man's girlfriend, who chased the assailant down the hall.



When the girlfriend returned, the nurse was already tending to her boyfriend. She recalls the girlfriend sobbing and saying "why did he kick him like that?"



"I didn't see it. I couldn't tell her," she said.

After the EMTs took over, placing the injured man on the stretcher and rushing him to the hospital, casino security asked her if she wanted to wait and give a statement to police. But she told them she did not see the attack, only the immediate aftermath of it.

State police on Friday did not immediately respond to a request to corroborate the woman's account.

The woman said she stepped out the Main Street entrance for a cigarette, and found it sealed off when she tried to go back in. She walked to another entrance and circled back to find her client by the slot machines, maybe 20 feet from the scene of the attack. The bank of machines blocked the view of the scene where workers were cleaning up, she said.

Within 10 or 15 minutes, she said, "There was no sign that anything had happened."

She credited MGM staff with controlling the scene and getting help quickly. When she called 911 on her phone, a dispatcher told her an ambulance was already on the way.

The security staff also did a good job clearing people away from the scene without creating a panic, she said, adding: "It could have been a huge fiasco."

She downplayed her own actions in tending to the injured man, saying she offered help to someone she saw in need of assistance.

"I don't want to use the word 'Good Samaritan,'' she said. "When something happens right in front of you, you help."