An Atlanta man says he was traumatized by security guards at Georgia’s premier trauma hospital.
Bryan L. Jones said he was taken by ambulance to the Grady Memorial Hospital emergency room Jan. 2. He said he felt ill with a 103 degree fever and was so plagued by coughing for days that it inflamed the cartilage between his ribs, according to the suit filed Friday in Fulton County State Court.
While there, the 48-year-old Jones, a nontraditional student at Morehouse, said he became worse and laid down on a stretcher to rest. Guards ordered him off of the gurney, saying the device was for injured or sick people — implying that Jones was malingering, said Mawuli Mel Davis, his attorney.
“They physically picked him off the stretcher — it escalated after that,” Davis said. “He was punched, he was kicked, he was punched so hard that he went to the bathroom on himself. I think that is a very significant. And to add insult to injury they had him arrested.”
Jones is suing for unspecified physical injuries and pain to his back, neck and shoulder and for psychological and emotional distress. The suit seeks $1,800 in medical bills and other unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Grady declined to comment on the lawsuit but said in a statement its “internal investigation” pegged Jones as the aggressor. Davis said his client became upset when he was manhandled, but he said he was too ill with what was later determined to be swine flu to be a threat.
“He was not in any shape to resist anyone,” Davis said. “He was laying on a stretcher because he was weak.”
Davis said the beating occurred outside after the security guards ordered Jones to leave without treatment after he argued with them about his use of the gurney.
The guards grabbed Jones and escorted him to the emergency room door and “violently pushed” him outside, according to the lawsuit. They assaulted and handcuffed him after he asked for an ambulance to be taken to the Atlanta Veterans Administration Hospital, the lawsuit said.
They called Atlanta police and told them Jones was faking being unable to walk, Davis said. APD charged him with breach of the peace and booked him into the Atlanta City jail.
After he got out of jail, he went to the VA medical center where he was diagnosed with swine flu, a dangerous form of influenza, Davis said.
Davis suspects the security guards mistook Jones as being a homeless man who had come into the emergency room to escape the weather described at the time by Channel 2 Action News as “the arctic express” with lows expected to be around 20 degrees and feeling like zero with the wind-chill factor.
If that was the case, the guards made a significant error, Davis said. Jones, a native of Jamaica, is an Air Force veteran, had been gainfully employed during his adult life and served on the board of the local chapter of Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Davis said.
He had enrolled in Morehouse and completed about half his coursework with a 3.85 grade point average, because of his lifetime goal of securing a higher education, Davis said. An Atlanta Municipal Court judge dismissed the misdemeanor charges against him, Davis said.
“Mr. Jones didn’t have on his Sunday best but came sick, he came hurt and he came in need and security stood in between him and treatment,” Davis said.
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