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Benefits November 29, 2007
Honolulu Police Dispatcher Sues over Eye Injury
November 29, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - A Honolulu
police dispatcher suffered a detached retina after she was
hit in the eye by a ball thrown by another emergency operator
during a "game" played while at work.
Reported by Fred Schneyer
In a lawsuit filed against the city by operator Sally Crowder, her co-worker, Flossie Leong, was also named as a defendant, according to a Honolulu Advertiser news report.The news report said the suit indicated the game involved Crowder’s co-workers throwing a small ball slightly smaller than a tennis ball at each other’s backs.
According to the complaint, some of the game players “would attempt to throw the ball with enough force to make the co-worker who was struck by the ball verbally express pain,” and Crowder was “repeatedly” struck in the back of the head and both eyes.
A co-worker asked a supervisor to stop the goings-on, but the supervisor declined saying the “game was therapeutic,” Crowder alleged. At one point, a ball allegedly thrown by Leong struck Crowder in the left eye “with such force that her retina was detached, requiring surgery.”
The unnamed emergency dispatch supervisor only halted the game-playing after Crowder filed a workers’ compensation claim, which was later denied by the city.
HPD spokeswoman Michelle Yu, responding for the department and for Leong, declined comment to the newspaper.