#Colorado doctor jailed for choking nurse, claims he ‘blacked out’

A former Colorado doctor has been jailed for 30 days for choking a nurse who tried to stop him from turning off vital-signs machines because they were too loud, according to reports.

Mark Randle Ryan, 58, admitted assaulting 51-year-old nurse Beth Duche in front of patients and colleagues at a Lone Tree medical center in October 2018 — but insisted he had “blacked out,” CBS4 said.

“All I could tell was that my hands were around, feel your jaw, feel throat, soft tissues — I did not know what was going on. I remember separating hands away from the throat,” he told his sentencing hearing Monday.

His attorney, Lisa Moses, tried to get him out of jail time — saying he was equally shocked by his attack — but Duche called for him to get the maximum sentence of 90 days, the report says.

“I was assaulted by a man who took an oath to do no harm. I feel he might have killed me if no one else would have been around,” Duche told Douglas County District Court Judge Theresa Slade, Denver 7 said.

Ryan — who pleaded guilty to second-degree assault by strangulation, a felony, and third-degree assault — was sentenced to 30 days in county jail to begin Thursday.

He also got three years of deferred judgment and probation, anger management classes, mental health treatment and 100 hours of community service, CBS4 said.

The one-time anesthesiologist had already relinquished his medical license.

“You absolutely put other patients at risk,” judge Slade told him. “You don’t get to act this way, ever.”

Duche has filed a lawsuit against Ryan over the choking incident, CBS4 said.