ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 25, 1997 TAG: 9701270055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE
SOURCE: Associated Press
Three nurses are suing the hospital where they work, claiming a mock armed robbery in the emergency room a year ago left them terrified that they were going to die and unable to enjoy their jobs.
The nurses, who were taken hostage and threatened with guns during the unannounced drill, filed suit Friday in Martinsville Circuit Court. They are seeking $30 million in damages for ``severe mental shock and distress'' they claim has caused lasting psychological injuries.
Shortly before dawn Jan.25, 1996, four men wearing ski masks and carrying guns burst into the emergency room at Martinsville Memorial Hospital. The men demanded drugs, took hostages and terrified nurses and patients, who had no idea the unfolding drama was a drill.
A fifth man posed as an intoxicated, unruly patient who was led into the emergency room by an actual police officer before the robbery. The robbers turned out to be the patient's accomplices.
The masked men were ``threatening death and bodily injury, screaming, cursing and brandishing and waving guns,'' the lawsuit said.
Two nurses, Lisa Meadows and Susan Martin, were forced at gunpoint to walk into a small room and were locked inside. Another nurse, Karon Southerland, tried to lock herself into a reception area.
With a gun pointed at her back, Martin was taken out of the room and forced to open a locked drawer containing morphine and other drugs.
The three nurses, who were working the overnight shift, thought they would be shot and killed, the lawsuit said.
``All three of the nurses enjoyed the work they did very much before,'' said their attorney, Jim Shortt. ``Now it's like hell to go in.''
The defendants include the hospital and its management company, its director and associate director, its security director and the shift supervisor. Also named in the suit are a security officer and four students in his karate school who were recruited to play the roles of armed robbers.
A 6-year-old boy having an asthma attack was turned away from the emergency room, and an elderly patient was so shocked by the gunmen that his pulse went ``sky-high,'' according an emergency room doctor's report.
The exercise was quickly denounced by the police chief, who had warned a hospital security guard that the drill could lead to a shootout.
``Such an activity had never been planned or conducted before, and, upon information and belief, no other hospital in the United States has ever conducted a similar drill,'' the lawsuit said.
But the hospital's attorney, Paul Thompson of Richmond, said he didn't think there was anything unlawful in the drill. Thompson declined to make specific comments Friday because he said he had not read the lawsuit.
Hospital director Joseph Roach said afterward that the 5-minute drill was carefully planned to test his staff's reaction to violence.
Some staff members, including the armed security guards, were warned in advance, and patients were supposed to be warned, Roach said last year. The intruders' weapons were not loaded, but the guards' handguns were, the hospital said.
Criminal charges against Jeff Bledsoe, the security director who planned the drill, and the five participants in the drill were dismissed in July.
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