Gympie girl, 18, bit hospital security guard in waiting room

She had accidentally stood on a friend's broken foot shortly beforehand.

AN 18-year-old woman bit a Gympie Hospital security guard as he tried to pull her away from a heated argument. Picture: Josh Preston

AN 18-YEAR-OLD woman bit a Gympie Hospital security guard as he tried to pull her away from a heated argument with a friend earlier this year.

Rose Renee Whittaker had gone to the hospital with the friend just before noon on April 13 after he broke his foot during a separate dispute between the two, the Gympie Magistrates Court heard this week.

Whittaker then accidentally stood on the injured foot as they waited to be seen by the doctor, inciting their second row for the morning.

The court heard hospital staff then called in the security guard to help break up the "altercation".

Whittaker "reacted aggressively" and struggled with him as he tried to restrain her and escort her from the building.

The two of them fell to the floor and Whittaker bit into the guard's right hand, breaking his skin and drawing blood. Prosecuting Sergeant Lisa Manns told the court Whittaker "eventually calmed down" and sat in a waiting chair with her friend and a different security guard until police arrived and told her to leave.

One of the officers told Whittaker she could not go within 50m of the hospital for 12 hours, but was called back to the premises later in the afternoon to find her sitting, in a "highly agitated" state, inside the boundary.

Whittaker pleaded guilty to one charge each of unlawful assault and contravening a police order, acknowledging she had done the wrong thing.

"It was an instant reaction ... I soon realised I can't just bite people. I was in the wrong, he was just doing his job," she said in court.

Magistrate Chris Callaghan called Whittaker's assault "serious" but noted her complete lack of a criminal history, her struggles with depression and her continued attempts to finish school in sentencing her to nine months' probation.

No convictions were recorded against her.

Originally published as Gympie girl, 18, bit hospital security guard in waiting room