YOUNGSTOWN — A jury found Dustin L. James guilty Thursday of one count of felonious assault and three counts of felony assault in a Dec. 24, 2021, incident in which he tried to stab one ambulance worker with a syringe.

James, 38, of Shields Road in Boardman, also assaulted a second ambulance worker and a police officer.

His three-day trial was before Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. The jury deliberated about 3 1/2 hours Thursday before rendering its verdicts. He could get more than 10 years in prison when he is sentenced.

James was charged with the felonious assault of two ambulance workers, but the jury found him guilty on just one. It was the count involving the Lane LifeTrans paramedic who injected James with the opiate reversal drug naloxone in the back of an ambulance on South Avenue in Boardman. This caused James to regain consciousness and attack her.

The jury found James not guilty of felonious assault involving the second ambulance worker, an emergency medical technician who was driving at the time James started fighting with the paramedic. The EMT pulled the ambulance to the side of the road, called 911 and went to the back of the ambulance to assist the paramedic.

The women were having a hard time controlling James, but Sgt. Glenn Patton with the Boardman Police Department was working a side job nearby, saw the ambulance on the side of the road and ran across a parking lot to enter the ambulance to assist.

The three lower-level assault charges were for assaulting both ambulance workers and Patton. Prosecutors explained that felonious assault alleges that a person caused or tried to cause physical harm to someone with a deadly weapon — in this case the syringe.

The women were treated at the hospital for bruises.

In opening statements to the jury, James’ attorney said the reason the ambulance was called was because his girlfriend’s mother called 911 on him.

James told the paramedic he did not want or need naloxone, but she administered it anyway.

“In the course of being stabbed in the thigh with this hypodermic needle, he grabbed it and pulled it out himself,” Lavelle said of the dose. James “broke (the needle) and threw it … so it would not be used on him in the future.”

One of the ways Boardman police restrained James was to use a “goose hold on his wrist … which by the way hurts,” Lavelle said, demonstrating how a law enforcement officer holds the knuckles of a person’s hand forward to gain compliance.

“He reacted in really the only way he could,” Lavelle said of James. “He essentially defended himself in the best way he could.”