A Winnipeg resident is believed to have been assaulted by a hospital security guard

A Winnipeg man left with more injuries than he entered after being taken to Winnipeg's largest hospital for treatment after hospital guards said he was beaten.

On the morning of January 18, Winnipeg resident Bobby Thomas was involved in a head-on collision on his way to work and was taken by ambulance to the nearby Health Sciences Centre. He came to the hospital with a noose around his neck.

But after hours without medical attention, Thomas decided it was time to seek help elsewhere. But when he was about to leave, one of the nurses objected.

Then Thomas began to record the relationship, he was approached by a guard and asked to leave the hospital, saying that he could not write. But as Thomas headed into the emergency area's front lobby, the number of guards increased.

“Still there, what are the four of them standing here for?” he thought.

Frightened, Thomas looked down at his phone to start typing.

“That's when I was grabbed from behind and thrown towards the sensor door that was opening, but it didn't open quickly enough because I was thrown into it,” she explained.

He said the confrontation moved outside, where about five security guards ganged up on him and punched him in the head.

“I felt like one, two, three or four big bangs, and that's when I yelled stop.”

When Thomas' sister arrived at the hospital, she found her brother handcuffed and with a broken cheekbone, concussion and nerve damage. Leaving aside his question, how could the outcome have been worse if his car accident injuries had been serious?

“What if there's more and we don't see it and they hurt my brother,” said April Thomas, Bobby Thomas' sister.

“They are there to protect people, to protect people, nowhere does it say protect people by beating them up.”

Shared Health says they are actively looking into the incident and are cooperating fully with the Winnipeg Police investigation. “We will continue to work to provide culturally informed and culturally safe care to all patients. The HR review will also determine what additional training measures our security team may need.”

But Thomas said she's heard from hospital staff since the incident that their experience was not an isolated one, and she hopes their story will help ensure it doesn't happen to anyone else.

“They came to us and said it happens very often, and we thought maybe a nurse was saying it, but then the doctor who treated me told us we should tell the story.”