Unsupervised patient paralyzed after falling off rehab center’s roof, Florida suit says
A man admitted himself to a rehabilitation center, where patients were allowed to gather and smoke cigarettes in an area on the facility’s fourth-story roof, a new lawsuit filed in Florida says.
The open area had no railings, fencing or other safeguards in place while Eman Bass was a patient at a Banyan Treatment Center in Milford, Delaware, according to the lawsuit, which says he was prescribed a heavy regimen of medications.
Bass, who was 31 when he sought help for drug and alcohol abuse at the center, is now permanently paralyzed after he was allowed on the roof — unsupervised — and fell four stories on Aug. 12, 2021, resulting in “dozens of fractured bones,” according to a complaint and news release.
Although a guard was typically stationed near the roof, no guard was present when Bass fell that day, when he experienced an “episode of mental and psychiatric instability,” the complaint says.
Bass is now suing the facility’s Florida-based parent company, Banyan Treatment and Recovery, LLC in Pompano Beach for negligence. The lawsuit was filed Aug. 10 in Broward County’s 17th Judicial Circuit court.
McClatchy News reached out to Banyan Treatment Centers, which has locations nationwide, for comment on Aug. 11 and didn’t receive a response.
Attorneys Tom Bosworth of Bosworth Law and Dan Morgan and Scott Henratty of Morgan & Morgan are representing Bass in the case.
“Our client walked into Banyan with the intention of leaving a better, healthier man, but left with a series of life-altering injuries that have paralyzed him and left him incontinent, and unable to care for his three young children,” the attorneys said in a joint statement provided to McClatchy News on Aug. 11.
More on the lawsuit
Bass admitted himself on July 27, 2021, to the Banyan Treatment Center in Milford, where staff should have allowed him to leave when he wanted, according to the complaint.
According to the center’s documents, Bass said he was at the treatment center “because (he) was scared and (he) was paranoid,” the complaint says.
There, he received several medications, including “Acetaminophen, Baclofen, Bentyl, Clonidine, Colace, Ibuprofen, Guaifenesin, Imodium, Keppra, Maalox, Melatonin, Milk of Magnesia, Norvasc, Promethazine, Trazodone, Tums, Vistaril, Zofran, and Zyprexa,” the complaint says.
The day before his fall, center staff noted he had “high levels” of anxiety, depression and craving — as well as low levels of “commitment” — for a patient “in their 3rd week of treatment,” according to the complaint.
On Aug. 12, 2021, he experienced ”an acute episode of mental and psychiatric instability” and tried to leave the center, but staff stopped him, the complaint says.
Bass instead went to the fourth floor’s roof area, where no guard is stationed, and fell — resulting in his “catastrophic injuries,” according to the complaint.
Alongside paralysis and fractured bones, Bass was left with dozens of other injuries and damages, including spinal cord injury, pelvic hemorrhaging, immobility and more, the complaint says.
With the lawsuit, Bass argues that he and other rehab patients “should not have been allowed access to the roof, especially given the significant psychiatric impacts of drug and alcohol withdrawal and the medications used to treat addiction,” a Morgan & Morgan news release said.
He’s seeking an unspecified amount of damages for physical and mental suffering, hospital expenses, and the loss of earnings, an ability to earn money, and the ability to “lead and enjoy a normal life,” the complaint says.
Bass demands a trial by jury.
“Patients at rehab facilities like this one trust that staff will implement and enforce common-sense safety policies to protect them during some of the most difficult and vulnerable moments in their lives,” Bosworth, Morgan and Henratty said. “Instead, the Banyan Treatment Center allegedly disregarded the health and safety of its patients by allowing them access to a fourth-story roof with no railings.”
In addition to Pompano Beach, Banyan Treatment Centers’ Florida facilities include locations in Boca Raton, Sebring, Lake Worth and Palm Beach Shores.
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