Delnor Hospital Nurses File Lawsuit After Forensic Patient Hostage Situation

The lawsuit claims officer carelessness led to the the hostage situation.
Published: May 31, 2017

Two nurses filed a lawsuit against Delnor Hospital in Illinois after one of them was held hostage for hours by a forensic patient earlier this month.

The federal lawsuit details for the first time the nurse’s experience and cites flaws in the handling of the inmate leading up to the incident.

Inmate Tywon Salters, 22, was being treated at Delnor Hospital when he grabbed a Kane County Jail correctional officer’s pistol and took a nurse hostage. After a tense three and a half hours of negotiations, a SWAT team entered the room and fatally shot Salters, puncturing the nurse’s arm with the bullet that struck Salters.

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The lawsuit states that the rotating Kane County sheriffs and security guards responsible for watching Salters provided inadequate security.

“A guard was found sleeping on a couch while guarding Mr. Salters,” Sean Murray, the nurses’ attorney, said in a press conference. “Guards were repeatedly observed using their personal cell phones, using their laptops or watching TV.”

Salters was also unshackled to use the bathroom multiple times, reports the Chicago Sun Times.

At some point while Salters was unshackled, he took a 9mm handgun from security guard Shawn Loomis. Loomis then ran into another room.

“[Loomis] ran down the hallway into another hospital room and possibly hid behind a hospital bed,” Murray said. “We know that guard made a phone call. But our investigation has shown that beyond that phone call, there was no other action taken on his behalf to help the hospital staff and the hospital nurses who were walking the hallways at the time.”

After taking the gun, Salters entered a nurse’s office and put a gun to a nurse’s head. When another nurse walked into the office, he took the second nurse to a decontamination room on a separate floor.

“He held a gun to her head the entire time,” Murray said. “She was tortured. She was repeatedly beaten with a gun in the back of her head. She was told she was going to die. She was going to leave in a body bag. He said he was going to shoot his way out. . . . She was also raped.”

Loomis, who is on paid administrative leave, is named as a defendant in the lawsuit along with the company that provided security for the hospital.

Loomis has not commented on the lawsuit.

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