Screwdriver Used In Attack
A North Idaho College student was arrested Saturday on a charge of aggravated battery after allegedly jamming a flat-headed screwdriver up a man’s nose.
The tool came within a half-inch of Thomas J. Specht’s brain, doctors told police. Specht, 22, of Moscow, Idaho, was treated at Kootenai Medical Center and released.
Rion R. Rivas, 18, of Coeur d’Alene, is being held at Kootenai County Jail on $5,000 bail. He told investigators he didn’t mean to put the screwdriver up Specht’s nose.
The two men got into a fight Saturday afternoon over the heating system at Rivas’ apartment, according to a Coeur d’Alene police report.
Rivas’ roommate, Heidi E. Johnson, asked her friend Specht to disconnect the heat because Rivas had been turning it up to 90 degrees, the police report says.
Specht was using the screwdriver to do so when Rivas tried to take it away and the two men began to fight, according to the police report.
Specht told police that Rivas punched him in the face several times, sliced his eye and hand with the screwdriver and then stuck the tool up his nose.
Once Rivas realized what he had done, he started yelling and apologizing, according to the police report.
Johnson drove both men to the hospital.
Specht’s eye and hand are expected to heal, but he may have sinus problems due to the nose injury, according to the police report.
, DataTimes