Former nurse tried to save stabbing victim, jury hears at Craig Pope murder trial

Tara O'Keefe had left her nursing career behind, but she couldn't help her instincts when she saw a man lying in the middle of the road with a crowd gathering around.

It was Sept. 7, 2017, and she had just picked up her daughter from her first day of school.

Driving up Mundy Pond Road in St. John's, she came upon Jonathan Collins dying in plain view of the public with an inch-wide wound to his stomach.

There were two young police officers at the scene when she jumped out of her car and offered to help.

"One of the officers said it looks like this man has been stabbed, at which point he showed me a wound in his abdomen," O'Keefesaid in courtWednesday morning. "It wasn't bleeding profusely. He wasn't losing a lot of blood."

O'Keefe is a pharmaceutical rep, but is trained and registered as a nurse.

Moments earlier, Collins had been seen in a fight with another man before he dropped to the ground. Craig Pope has been charged with second-degree murder, accused of stabbing Collins in the stomach during the fight.

Victim had blood in his mouth

O'Keefe took Collins by the arm and felt for a pulse.

"Human nature is to question yourself. Do I feel a pulse or not?" she said. "The bottom line is, if he does not have a good heartbeat, even if there is a pulse, it's not effective."

O'Keefe made the decision to start performing CPR. She did chest compressions while Const. Dalton Parks breathed into Collins's mouth.

Parks testified there was blood in the victim's mouth as he tried to get him breathing.

"For me, it felt like forever, but I'd say it was only three to five minutes before the ambulance arrived," he said.

On Tuesday, Const. Trevor Kennedy testified he went with Collins in the ambulance and stayed with him until he was pronounced dead at the Health Sciences Centre.

After her testimony, O'Keefe headedinto the hallway outside the courtroom. Collins's father came out moments later and thanked her for trying to save his son.

Pope arrested on Elizabeth Avenue

Const. Kyle Smith was in the east end of the city that daywhen he heard a call come over the radio.

Officers were told to be on the lookout for a heavyset man dropped off by a cab in a government housing development near Elizabeth Avenue. He was a person of interest ina reported stabbing on Mundy Pond Road a few minutes earlier.

Smith headed to the area, and spotted two men walking towards Elizabeth Avenue from an area known as "the courts."

When the two men sawhim following them in his cruiser, Smith said they split up. The bigger manwent into a plaza on the corner of Elizabeth Avenue and Paton Street, while the other man identified as Gordon Whalen kept walking down Paton.

Smith told another officer to head to the plaza. Moments later, he said Craig Pope was taken out in handcuffs.

He was wearing a yellow plaid shirt. He had a needle and a lighter in his pocket.

Testimony will resume Wednesday afternoon, with more eyewitnesses to Pope's arrest.

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