Dr. Charles Brown spent more than 20 years working as an emergency medicine doctor in Greenville. Just months away from retiring, in 2016, he encountered a patient who would forever change his life.

"I was complacent," he recalls. "Got careless. And paid the price."

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As Brown turned to leave the hospital room, he said a patient attacked him -- punching him in the face and knocking him to the ground. Brown was rendered unconscious. His eye socket was broken in three places, and his nose was broken, too. Plates and screws still hold his face together after reconstructive surgery. Also, his vision is permanently impaired.

"If I look up, I see double," he explained. "So, if I look like into a lower cabinet under the counter, I see two sets of pots and pans."

Court data shows charges for felony assault on emergency personnel are up 145% in the last 10 years in North Carolina, rising from 85 charges in 2014-15, to 213 in 2023-24.

Looking specifically at nurses, National Nurses United found, in 2023, that eight in 10 nurses experienced violence in the prior year.

State Rep. Timothy Reeder, R-Pitt County, is uniquely positioned as a lawmaker and emergency medicine physician.

A former medical partner of Brown, he was motivated by what happened to Brown and others to take action. He sponsored a bill that is now law and will go into effect next year, requiring hospitals to have law enforcement officers, and requiring better tracking of assaults on health care workers and the outcomes of those cases in court. It's called the Hospital Violence Protection Act.

"I’m still working full time in the emergency department," Reeder said. "So, I see on a daily basis the challenges that staff have in taking care of patients when we are sometimes in an unsafe environment ... When you’re worried about your safety … you can’t be dedicated to the patients that you’re seeing, the family members."

Reeder said improving safety in the workplace will help in addressing the shortage of health care professionals. According to research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, experts predict an estimated shortage of nearly 12,500 registered nurses by 2033.

"We know that burnout in healthcare is huge," Rep Reeder said." And one of the big drivers of burnout and lack of well-being is a lack of sense of control. When you don’t feel safe, that tremendously impacts your sense of control."

A report from National Nurses United on its 2023 survey included a summary from a nurse working in North Carolina, who wrote:

“I work in the emergency department. I am verbally threatened almost every shift. I am physically threatened at least once a week. In the last three months I have experienced every single form of violence listed in this survey. I was punched in the face and scratched by a confused patient stuck in a hallway bed. I was fearful for my physical safety in behavioral health with an extremely violent patient and no sitter available. I was sexually groped by a patient who did the same to six other female staff. Unfortunately, these incidents are almost a daily thing at this point."

At the UNC School of Nursing, they are working on another solution -- enhanced training, made possible by grant funding.

Instead of learning how to respond to violence through a computer course, nurses and nursing students will get a more realistic experience.

"This issue is important because it contributes to recruitment, retention, well-being," said Valerie Howard, Dean and Professor of Nursing at UNC Chapel Hill School of Nursing.

Howard explained the new training would be a simulation.

"We are going to use actors, trained actors, to play the role of patients, family members and other healthcare providers," she said.

That training is to begin in early 2025.

For Brown, all of these steps are promising. He hopes to see continued resolve, across the board, to stop the violence against those in his profession.

"I think it should be a high priority," he said. "I think it should be higher than it is."