An inmate punched and bit prison officers who wanted to search his cell for a phone.
Robert Smith had just returned to HMP Deerbolt, near Barnard Castle, on June 7 last year after surgery for a brain tumour ten days earlier, when he carried out the attack.
Two officers told Smith his cell was to be searched for a phone when he claimed to be feeling feint, dizzy, and asked them to dim the lights and draw the curtains, Durham Crown Court heard.
When they refused he threw a protein shaker bottle at one of the officers and punched the other, who landed a blow back.
Smith struck that officer twice more in the face, and another colleague joined them in taking the defendant to the floor.
Prosecutor Cole Cockburn said as they grappled, the defendant bit one officer's finger and drew blood.
One officer suffered bruising to his face and a cut to his finger, plus other bruising to his body.
His colleague had a cut that became infected, and the bitten officer had to be tested for Hepatitis B.
Mr Cockburn said Smith's cell was searched and an iPhone was found.
In interview the 39-year-old inmate denied the assaults saying he did not know how the officers were injured.
He said he had been unwell and was physically unable to mount such an assault, but he claimed he had actually been the one who was assaulted.
Mr Cockburn said one of the injured officers had to explain to his young child why he had a black eye.
Smith, originally from Carlisle, was said to have 28 convictions for 73 offences, including a number for violence in his younger days.
He was serving a nine-year sentence for his most recent conviction, from December 2023, for conspiring to supply heroin, at the time.
Appearing at court via video link from HMP Lancaster Farms in Lancashire, Smith originally denied two counts of assaulting an emergency worker but changed his pleas a week before his trial.
Lewis Hazeldine, for Smith, said his client had only returned to Deerbolt the day before after having the brain tumour, diagnosed in 2019, removed.
Mr Hazeldine said following the operation the after-effects were "problematic" and the defendant suffered a seizure, for which he was receiving various medication.
He said: "He accepts the officers were tasked with searching the cell and his actions were clearly inappropriate, but you need to consider his mindset, given his return the day before from such serious surgery.
"He asked the officers to shut the curtains, given how unwell he felt that day.
"He accepts injuries were caused but he was vulnerable and did suffer injuries of his own, including bruising and a bump on the forehead, a lump to his jaw, pain to the knee-cap and a swollen ankle.
"Also, he did suffer another seizure immediately following the incident."
Judge Richard Clews accepted Smith had just undergone a major surgical procedure and there may have been good reason to want the curtains drawn, but he said there was "good reason" for the search given a phone was found.
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He added: "It simply goes to show they were entirely justified in their search.
"Whatever your circumstances were at the time, you had no right to behave as you did."
Judge Clews added 30 weeks to be served on top of the existing nine-year sentence the defendant is now serving.
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