BOSTON -- Officials at Cape Cod Hospital are denying reports that hospital employees used a choke hold to restrain an unruly patient who died last week after an altercation with staff members.

Sources told The Cape Cod Times that the incident involved a man who began acting irrationally after coming to the hospital Oct. 9 to visit his wife. The man was taken for a psychiatric evaluation, but started running through the hospital.

WXTK radio reported security put the man in a choke hold, rendering him unconscious.

A spokesman for the hospital disputed those reports Sunday, however, saying that employees followed standard procedures in subduing the patient.

“The hospital’s review of this matter to date shows no deviation from established restraint protocols,” Cape Cod Healthcare spokesman David Reilly said in a prepared statement read to the paper.

The Times identified the patient as a 59-year-old man from Mashpee. The man reportedly died at the hospital on Oct. 29, three weeks after the scuffle with hospital employees.

“There is no indication that a 'chokehold' was ever applied to (the patient) or that excessive/undue force was used at any point during his restraint,” Reilly said. “In fact, our security personnel receive training in de-escalation techniques, and those techniques were utilized before (the patient) began to lash out.”

Reilly called the death an unfortunate and unusual event, and he said that the hospital is cooperating fully with an investigation by Barnstable police and the Department of Public Health into the incident.

Cape district attorney Michael O’Keefe said that his office is also involved in the investigation.

"We'll be assembling all the evidence as we would in any kind of unattended death," O'Keefe said. "And when the investigation is complete, we'll take whatever action is called for, if any."