Hospital Guards Beat Up Patient Trying To Flee Cancer Surgery He Didn’t Need
WHEN Joseph Wheeler was hurt in a car accident he was hospitalised at Prince George’s Hospital, Maryland, USA. That as June 23. On June 24 he woke in a hospital bed. He felt hungry. But the nurse said he could have no food. Why? Because he was scheduled to go to theatre “to have a potentially cancerous mass removed from his chest“.
He knew this was not the case. Mr Wheeler’s lawyer says the ID bracelet about his client’s wrist “contained a name that was different from Mr. Wheeler’s, appeared to be that of a woman, and had a birth date that was 13 years prior to his own“.
Mr Wheel decides to leave. He makes to go but claims guards stop him. The guards beat him up and repeatedly called him “bitch”.
Runs the complaint:
“Mr. Wheeler, still in serious pain from the car accident and subsequent treatment from injuries sustained, was starting to fear for his safety as the hospital had misidentified him and he was being prepped to go into a surgery that he knew nothing about.
“At this point, Mr. Wheeler’s wife, Felicia Ann Wheeler, came into the room to see her husband. Mr. Wheeler immediately told Mrs. Wheeler about what was taking place. The Wheelers decided that it was in their best interest to leave Prince George’s Hospital Center and seek medical care for Mr. Wheeler elsewhere.”
The guards are named as William Reese and Donovan Scott.
“Defendant Scott harshly asked, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Mr. Wheeler told both Reese and Scott that his business was finished at the hospital and that he was on his way out.
“In the moments immediately following this exchange, defendant Scott began to appear angry and upset with Mr. Wheeler. He began to use profanity directed at Mr. Wheeler about getting back to Wheeler’s ‘damn room.’
“At this point the two officers put on black padded gloves in front of Mr. Wheeler and defendant Scott started to hit his fist against his own hand and moved closer in proximity to Wheeler’s face. Defendant Scott appeared angry and agitated.”
Wheeler, “in fear for his safety,” tried to reason with the guards. He claims the guards then threw him to the floor.
“Mr. Wheeler, in serious pain and feeling like he was going to black out, fell to floor. Defendant Scott stood over him and yelled, ‘Get off the floor bitch! This game is over!’
“Defendant Scott continued, ‘I don’t care who you think you are, this is my camp, you listen to what I got to say!’ The vocal officer then grabbed Mr. Wheeler and pulled him up off of the ground as Wheeler pleaded with the officer to stop hurting him.
“At this point the defendant Reese said to the vocal officer, ‘Man, ease up on him. He might really be hurt.’ Defendant Scott replied, ‘Hell no, he don’t come up in here and be telling us what the fuck to do!'”
Later, they are in an office, where an unidentified lieutenant questioned him.
“After Mr. Wheeler explained what had happened, the lieutenant looked at Wheeler’s hospital-provided identification bracelet and acknowledged that Wheeler had been misidentified.”
Then:
Wheeler says the lieutenant became agitated when he would not return the incorrect bracelet, and ordered the security guards to stop him from leaving.
He says a plainclothes hospital employee, a woman he identifies as an “administrator … intervened in the conversation” and after he explained the situation, said she would make sure he “would have his own private room and any type of drug he wanted, just to name the pain killer.”
Wheeler says he and his wife chose to leave the hospital, but when he tried to leave with the incorrect ID bracelet, one of the security guards “charged Wheeler, again calling Wheeler ‘bitch,’ and shoved him against the wall.”
“Mr. Wheeler spent the next three days at St. Mary’s Hospital and was diagnosed with four broken ribs, a sprained shoulder, a ruptured spleen, and a concussion,” he says.
So…
The Wheelers seek $3.2 million in compensatory damages and $9.5 million in punitive damages for assault and battery, false imprisonment and infliction of emotional distress.
Whish seems reasonable…
Posted: 26th, August 2010 | In: Strange But True Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
