NEW YORK CITY, NY  --  A construction worker is suing a New York hospital, claiming that when he went to the hospital after being hit on the forehead by a falling wooden beam, emergency room staffers forcibly gave him a rectal examination.

According to AP, Brian Persaud, 38, says in court papers that after he denied a request by NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital emergency room employees to examine his rectum, he was "assaulted, battered and falsely imprisoned."

His lawyer, Gerrard M. Marrone, said he and Persaud later learned the exam was one way of determining whether he had suffered spinal damage in the accident.

Marrone said his client got eight stitches for a cut over his eyebrow.

Then, Marrone said, emergency room staffers insisted on examining his rectum and held him down while he begged, "Please don't do that." He said Persaud hit a doctor while flailing around and staffers gave him an injection, which knocked him out, and performed the rectal exam.

Persaud woke up handcuffed to a bed and with an oxygen tube down his throat, the lawyer said, and spent three days in a detention center.

A request by the hospital to dismiss Persaud's lawsuit was denied by Justice Alice Schlesinger, who ordered a trial to start March 31.

Last update: 01-16-2008 20:11