Jury Awards Florida Woman $25M After Hospital Delayed Reporting Of Sexual Abuse By Staff Member

A Florida plaintiff was awarded $25 million after allegedly being sexually assaulted by a male nurse who was employed by the hospital. According to her lawsuit, her doctors had ordered an injection of morphine after the plaintiff fell at work. Her nurse instead fed her a dose of painkiller directly into her IV drip, rendering her docile and woozy more quickly. The nurse then taped a bed pad over the hospital room’s only window and proceeded to sexually assault the victim over the course of the next four hours. The plaintiff felt too groggy from the drugs he had given her to fight back. The nurse ordered her to stay quiet. She was afraid that the nurse would kill her if she didn’t comply or yelled out.

After a criminal trial, the plaintiff’s abuser went to prison. He was sentenced to 20 years on charges of sexual battery and lewd and lascivious molestation of a disabled person.

A jury in September found that the hospital was negligent and awarded her $25 million in damages. This case was the latest in the hospital’s history of sexual abuse allegations. One situation prompted a state law to protect patients.

This abuse scenario has reignited concerns over patient safety and the hospital’s protocols for dealing with allegations of abuse by staffers.

Security camera video showed the abuser entered the plaintiff’s room 28 times between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. which averages out to once every 8.5 minutes. Her room was just yards away from the nursing station. The plaintiff said she was too scared to call the police because the male nurse who assaulted her kept coming back. She was afraid that if she tried to call 911, the dispatchers would ask her too many questions and she’d be caught turning her abuser in.

Once the drugs wore off, the plaintiff called her therapist to report what happened and her therapist notified a nearby rape crisis hotline. Hospital staff was, at this point, alerted to what happened.

However, according to her lawsuit, hospital officials delayed calling law enforcement for six hours, during which a colleague of the abuser accused the plaintiff of making up the abuse allegations, according to court records. The plaintiff was unaware that the abuser had been sent home and worried that he would return to harm her.

The plaintiff was ultimately moved to a different room where she heard staffers outside her door laughing at her story. She also learned that the bed on which the assault had taken place had been stripped and worried that the hospital was destroying evidence.

Ultimately, the case was successfully resolved. The plaintiff entered into a confidential settlement with the hospital to prevent the hospital from appealing the verdict.

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Source:

tampabay.com/news/health/2024/11/08/jury-awards-woman-25m-after-hca-citrus-hospital-delayed-reporting-sexual-abuse-2/