Actor sues New York-Presbyterian’s Weill Cornell hospital after security guards held him against his will
New York NY June 25, 2019, An actor who once starred alongside Brad Pitt on TV says a visit to one of the city’s top hospitals to accompany his elderly mother turned into a plot out of a horror movie when he became an unwilling patient.
Evan Miranda, 54, contends staff at New York-Presbyterian’s Weill Cornell campus bizarrely gave him a blood test, heart exam and CAT scan “against his will and without his consent,” according to a lawsuit against the hospital filed last Saturday in state Supreme Court.
“It was like ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.’ I didn’t know what was going on,” said Miranda, who used the stage name Evan Mirand and played Dominic Fopiano on the short-lived 1990 show “Glory Days” with Pitt. He also had a role in Pitt’s “Fight Club” movie.
The nightmare began after Miranda’s mother, Evelyn Perez, 84, broke her hip and had surgery at New York-Presbyterian. Miranda spent three nights there last month, sleeping on the floor of her room, court papers say.
He was back by her side when she had to return to the emergency room May 30, laying down on the floor to relieve his back pain, the suit says.
A hospital staffer told him to use an empty stretcher, where, exhausted from days with little rest and after taking pain medication, he fell asleep, court papers say.
Security guards allegedly woke him up and demanded to know who he was and why he was there. By then his mother had been moved from the room.
They accused the Upper East Side man of being a drunk trespasser and demanded he empty his pockets “for search and inspection,” court papers say.
After Miranda took out pain meds for his back, a guard exclaimed, “We got him,” he alleges in the suit.
Miranda says the guards refused to listen to his explanations about his sick mother and that, because of a shift change, no one recognized him.
“I was well dressed. I didn’t look like a bum,” he said.
But staffers insisted on giving him a blood test with one nurse saying, “We have to because we think you’re drunk,” legal papers say.
He said the security guards were ever present and he thought they may have been police officers because of their uniforms, the suit says.
“I wasn’t going to challenge policemen,” he told The Post. “I was afraid.”
He said he was forced to have a CAT scan exposing him to “what could be harmful radiation,” and an electrocardiogram, court papers say.
The Post reviewed Miranda’s hospital records of the tests and scan.
At one point, he was so distraught he started “crying hysterically,” the suit says. He was finally discharged after demanding to see supervisors.
But Miranda, who has worked as a screenwriter in recent years, said he first wanted the results of the blood test which showed he had no alcohol in his system, according to the suit seeking unspecified damages.
He received a hospital bill Friday for $6,295.
“This debacle demands serious accountability, as well as genuine regulatory, medical accreditation and law enforcement investigation. We intend to hold every contributing party responsible,” said Brett Joshpe, Miranda’s lawyer.
A hospital spokeswoman said she had no comment.
New York Post
