ICU ‘drill’ — with real gun — was a lawsuit waiting to happen

In a world overflowing with dumb ideas, this one was extraordinarily stupid.

Let's send a cop undercover into a hospital's intensive care unit, waving a real gun, and see how the staff reacts. But let's not tell anyone it's an emergency preparedness drill.

That's exactly what officials at St. Rose Dominican Hospital-Siena Campus did on May 24 . You may recall news accounts.

You knew it was a lawsuit in waiting. On April 20, three ICU nurses and a respiratory therapist sued the hospital, off-duty cop Charles Yannis, Chief Operating Officer Teressa Conley and three members of the Emergency Management Committee, Bernard Jones, Kim Dokken and Matthew Berhold.

Jones, then the chief of security, was fired. Dokken, trauma and stroke program director, and Berhold, rehabilitation services director, were placed on administrative leave and booted off the Emergency Management Committee.

The lawsuit -- filed by nurses Keri Standish, Anne Hale and Barbara Ruggiero and respiratory therapist Marcus Day -- describes how each one feared he or she was going to die that day after an angry man entered the ICU and began waving a gun.

According to the lawsuit filed in District Court by local attorney L.J. Semenza, Yannis pointed his gun at Standish's face from a distance of 3 or 4 feet and ordered her into a break room. Ultimately, he forced eight staff members, including Standish, Hale and Day and two physicians, into this break room. One weeping nurse asked whether she could call her children to say goodbye and was told no.

Can you imagine the terror they must have felt during the 15 to 20 minutes this lasted?

During the drill, there had been intercom announcements of Code Grey (which meant a call for security) and then a Code Silver (meaning there was someone with a weapon in the hospital).

Nurse Hale, hearing Code Silver, walked down the hallway to attend an ill patient and close doors to patient rooms. Yannis pointed a gun at her chest from a distance of seven or eight steps, the lawsuit alleged.

Citing safety concerns, Hale resigned June 8 , effective on July 10, yet the hospital terminated her as part of a reorganization after she submitted her resignation. She was told to repay the hospital $4,176, a portion of a relocation loan. Her claim includes retaliation.

Therapist Day is a Vietnam veteran who worked at the UCLA Medical Center in the late 1980s when four people were shot and killed. He thought he was going to die this time and has since had reoccurring flashbacks of Vietnam, the lawsuit alleged.

ICU nurse Ruggiero feared for her life after hearing the two codes on the hospital intercom and being told there was a gunman in ICU.

Remember, this was the same Henderson hospital where on March 11, 2009, a man entered the emergency room with a gun and threatened suicide before he was shot and killed by police.

Several staffers, including Day, told the Bureau of Health Care Quality and Compliance they believed patient care was affected. But the bureau later concluded "no delay in care, treatment and services was identified." The lawsuit disputes those findings.

The defendants are accused of civil conspiracy, assault, false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, intentional misrepresentation, fraud, and breach of contract.

The hospital had no comment on the pending litigation.

Can't wait to hear their reasoning for a drill that made employees think death was imminent.

Yet, it could have been worse.

This is Nevada, where people with concealed-weapons permits can carry guns.

That cop is lucky he didn't get his head blown off.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0275. She also blogs at lvrj.com/blogs/morrison.