The latest from the front….
ER Nurse Sues Cop for Handcuffing Her During Dispute Over Drawing Suspect’s Blood
Chicago, IL. Sept. 21 –A head emergency room nurse at Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital has sued the city and a Chicago Police officer for handcuffing her and putting her in the back of a squad car during a dispute over drawing blood from a suspected drunken driver.
Lisa Hofstra said she was the “charge nurse” in the emergency room on Aug. 1 when the officer approached her at about 4 a.m. The officer requested she perform a blood work-up on a DUI suspect, the lawsuit said.
Hofstra told the officer the suspect needed to be admitted to the hospital before she could draw the person’s blood. Hofstra said she told a police lieutenant that it was the hospital’s protocol to wait until a suspect was admitted, and the lieutenant agreed, she said.
The lieutenant left the emergency room.
Then Hofstra called her supervisors, but before they could respond, the officer put her in handcuffs in front of her co-workers and escorted her to a squad car, according to the lawsuit…
She was in the car for about 45 minutes before the situation was resolved, Hofstra said. The cuffs were too tight, requiring treatment in the hospital after she was released from custody, she said.
A security video of the incident shows the officer smiling outside the squad car as Hofstra sat inside.
Hofstra said it was a major problem for her to be removed from the emergency room at a time when there were numerous patients suffering from “bad trauma.”
She was responsible for triage — the process of deciding which patients need the most urgent attention.
“If this officer is treating me the way he treated me, what is he going to do to people on the street?” Hofstra said, adding that she filed her lawsuit to “stand up for nurses.”
In cop-talk, it’s called "attitude adjustment" or "field-administered punishment" for not doing what you’re told. Welcome to MADD’s "War on Drunk Driving"….
(Thanks to David O’Shea.)
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