BOSTON – For the first time a former Massachusetts corrections officer is speaking publicly about a brutal beating at the hands of an inmate that has left him permanently disabled.
Matt Tidman was before a legislative committee considering a bill that would ban exercise equipment and free weights from the state’s medium and maximum security prisons. “I hope it doesn’t happen to anybody else,” Tidman told the legislators. “Nobody deserves this, my family doesn’t deserve this.”
He’s trying to rebuild his life after the attack August 31, 2022, at MCI Shirley having to learn to walk and talk again after he was knocked unconscious, on life support and in a coma for several weeks. He’s missing part of his skull and is deaf in right ear, blind in his right eye.
Kelly McKenna, the director of nursing at the prison at the time, brought home the trauma of the attack with a metal bar from the equipment. “His face was five times the size it was, he was having seizures. I had to hold him on his side so he wouldn’t choke. It was just horrible,” said McKenna.