Hospital Director Sues over Hostage Drill

Business Insurance reports that Ourida Diktakis, ICU director at St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson, Nevada, claims the hospital’s administrators authorized a drill in May 2010, during which a man held her and two other staff members hostage at gunpoint, according to a lawsuit filed in Las Vegas’ Clark County District Court.  In her complaint, Diktakis alleges that the hospital’s administrators intentionally did not inform her or the ICU staff of the drill.   

She claims the hospital’s actions not only “emotionally traumatized” her and her staff, but put patients in the ICU at risk by unnecessarily detaining their caregivers. “There was no point to the ‘drill’ other than to traumatize staff, patients and visitors and there was no reason given as to why it was purportedly conducted,” the suit claims, according to Business Insurance.    

Diktakis is seeking at least $50,000 in damages for emotional trauma, assault, false imprisonment, and civil conspiracy against her and her staff.   

The news report said that according to court documents, a man walked into Diktakis’ ICU on May 24, 2010, and after a brief argument, pulled out a handgun and pointed it at her. He then ordered Diktakis, a nurse, and a unit supervisor into the break room, and held them hostage for “a period of time.”  

Eventually, the gunman—named as one of the defendants in the lawsuit—revealed himself to be an off-duty Las Vegas Metropolitan Police officer, and informed the women that the entire ordeal had been a “drill.”