A Bay State prison guard who was reportedly knocked unconscious and later woke up confused in the hospital has been denied leave by the Department of Correction, according to the peeved officers’ union.

Officer John Connelly recently shared his “scary” story of last month’s incident at MCI-Shirley. Connelly had been attending to an unresponsive inmate in their cell when he apparently found the synthetic drug K2.

Then a short time later, Connelly told a fellow officer that he was feeling weak and passed out. The next thing he remembers is waking up in the hospital, and the doctor saying he would need time to recover from the episode. Connelly was told that he was given Narcan four times, and he had multiple seizures.

Now less than three weeks later, the Massachusetts Department of Correction has reportedly denied Connelly of leave benefits from the industrial accident, according to the head of the Massachusetts Correction Officers Federated Union.

“We find it odd and just absurd how DOC acts against their employees,” Dennis Martin, president of the union, told the Herald on Wednesday.

“He was just doing his job, responding to an inmate, and look what happened to him,” Martin said. “Now DOC just wants to cut him off from his leave time. It’s completely outrageous.”

Connelly was experiencing the same symptoms as the unresponsive inmate, the union’s leader said. It was certainly a drug exposure, he emphasized.

“They mirrored each other,” Martin said of their symptoms. “So what do they think caused this (for Connelly)? It’s just perplexing how DOC has handled this.”

Connelly has been seeing a neurologist following the incident, reporting that he breaks out in uncontrollable shakes at times. The father has also been struggling with his mental health.

“This is really affecting him physically and emotionally,” Martin said. “He doesn’t know if he wants to go back to that environment ever again.

“And now DOC not approving leave time is really bothering him,” he added. “Let’s get him treated first, and then we can reassess, and see if it’s safe for him to go back to work.”

Following Connelly’s hospitalization and a reported string of similar incidents, the public safety union has been urging DOC to implement an “exposure policy” for when officers are exposed to synthetic drugs and chemicals, including fentanyl and K2.

It has been a systemic problem in local prisons since 2018, Martin said.

“We’ve been asking for a policy and procedure for when these incidents happen, and the leadership has been neglectful,” he added. “When an inmate is found unconscious, there should be a standard operating procedure to make that situation safe for everybody else.”

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Connelly and the union are appealing DOC’s denial of leave.

After the incident on July 20, DOC said the department was conducting a “thorough review of this matter to determine the facts and circumstances.” DOC at the time noted that the correction officer reported feeling ill immediately following the inmate episode.

On Wednesday, a DOC spokesperson said that the “department’s review of this incident to determine the facts and circumstances remains ongoing. We are unable to comment on specific personnel matters.”

A correction officer was knocked unconscious during an incident at MCI-Shirley last month. (Massachusetts Department of Correction photo)