Three more nurses, alleging false imprisonment and emotional distress over an active shooter drill that their instructors told them was real, have filed a lawsuit against AdventHealth Ocala.
As part of a November 2021 mandatory training session for new nurses at AdventHealth TimberRidge emergency room in Ocala, Chelsea Barker, Danika Bueno and Alisa Coffey allege AdventHealth employee Travis Gilman wore a mask covering his face, appeared at a window, made bangs that sounded like gunshots, stormed into the room, told nurses to get on the ground and demanded drugs.
“Plaintiffs were certain they were going to die and thought they would never see their families and loved ones again,” the suit alleges.
They are suing in Marion County Circuit Court for false imprisonment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, assault, robbery, and negligent training and supervision by AdventHealth Ocala.
The suit, filed Aug. 9, follows two suits filed July 26 over the same incident by two other nurses. Both are seeking monetary damages in an amount to be decided by jury trial.
This suit provides more detail about the incident, naming the AdventHealth staff involved and describing how nurses “cowered” in a corner behind filing cabinets in the basement where the training took place.
It alleges Gilman posed as an active shooter at the direction of hospital management, specifically Emergency Department Director Kimberly Loucks, Emergency Department Educator Beth Torrens-Nardine, Nurse Residency Coordinator Rosemary Adams, Clinical Educator Marie Hankinson and Manager of the Emergency Department Darren Dubecky.
Hankinson and Torrens-Nardine were in the room with the nurses during this drill, the suit alleges, “cowering and acting like they were fearful of the masked gunman. Unlike the nurses whose fear was terrifying and genuine, they were play-acting.” The two instructors “played along by throwing their phones on the ground, putting their hands up and pretending to verbally deescalate the situation.”
The instructors both denied multiple times that this was a drill when asked by the nurses being trained, and did not reveal it to be a drill until five to 10 minutes after it began, the suit alleges.
Before knowing the situation was a drill, two plaintiffs in this suit, Bueno and Barker, called 911 with their cellphones while hiding behind other nurses, the suit says. Barker called twice.
Marion County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Valerie Strong previously told the Sentinel the agency was not forewarned of the training and, after nurses called 911, dispatched an officer to what appeared to be a real shooting.
The drill was also not relevant to the nurses’ training, the suit alleges.
The nurses involved were never “debriefed, or ‘instructed’ as to what they should have done in that situation, told what they did right, and there was absolutely no related instruction, training, or even conversation of the sort,” the suit alleges.
According to the lawsuit, all the management involved is still employed at AdventHealth except Dubecky.
AdventHealth West Florida Division spokesperson Richelle Hoenes told the Sentinel last week that though AdventHealth regularly provides active shooter training, this was an isolated incident.
“We have addressed this instance to ensure a standard process is followed consistently and continue to work with industry experts to make our trainings as effective as possible at protecting our teams and patients,” she wrote.
Hoenes did not respond to a request for comment on the new lawsuit.
@CECatherman Twitter
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