NYC woman claims her fear of wild turkeys led her to fall in injury lawsuit against local hospital
A Staten Island woman claims she fell and permanently injured herself outside a local hospital due in part to her fear of the wild turkeys roaming the facility’s campus.
Carmen Pagan, 60, is suing Staten Island University Hospital and its owner Northwell Health after she said she tripped and hurt herself as she tried to avoid the large birds and stumbled on an uneven curb, according to the Staten Island Advance.
The plaintiff, who worked as an administrative aide at a high school on the island, said she underwent four surgeries on her right shoulder as a result of her June 2019 tumble, the lawsuit obtained by the paper states.
Still, her mobility in that arm was permanently stunted, forcing her to resign from her job as she was unable to lift her arm to perform certain tasks, she testified in court, according to the Advance.
Pagan and her attorney Robert Brown allege that dangerous conditions — including an unaddressed turkey population — outside the Ocean Breeze facility caused her injury.
They also blamed the uneven pavement where she fell as well as a continuous issue of cars frequently standing in the hospital’s “no parking zone,” blocking pedestrians from safely accessing proper pathways, according to the suit.
Pagan had dropped her husband off at the medical center and was walking across the campus to a food truck for a cup of coffee when she fell, the local outlet reported.
She said she walked a roundabout way towards the truck in order to avoid a flock of large wild turkeys — known to be a common nuisance by blocking traffic — and was led to an area of narrow pavement.
A car in a “no parking zone” was then blocking a crosswalk to a wider concrete path so she continued on the narrow section. There, her sneaker got caught between an uneven curb and a section of cement, according to the suit.
With her foot stuck, she fell and banged her head against a nearby support wall, injuring her shoulder as she tried to catch herself, the Advance reported.
Pagan’s attorney said in the suit that the hospital neglected to make “adequate, proper repairs to subject sidewalk … to yield the right of way … and to observe the defective sidewalk,” according to the paper.
Attorneys for the hospital and its parent company, however, argued that Pagan failed to use two clearly marked pedestrian crosswalks that would have directed her to a proper, wider sidewalk.
They said the area where she fell was clearly not intended for pedestrian use — with an engineering consultant testifying that normal maintenance codes for sidewalks and walkways weren’t applicable as the area was created for drainage purposes.
