State Employees Allowed to Violate Patients’ Constitutional Rights – Attorney Wanted!
Sean Lynn was falsely imprisoned at UAMS Medical Center for two weeks. The 100+ medical staff, administrators and security personnel involved refuse to compensate Sean for the damage they caused him. Surveillance videos taken by UAMS staff were destroyed. The UAMS PD refused to investigate. The Arkansas Attorney General’s Office said it was not their job to help citizens who are forced to use fentanyl and other dangerous drugs. (But the AG is spending tax dollars on a PR campaign called “One Pill Can Kill.”)
UAMS staff, including Nurse Shannon Cobb and Nurse Christian Rosenbaum, threatened to have me, Sean’s mom, removed from the hospital if I video recorded the felonious conduct. The video linked above was made accidentally when I hit the wrong button while putting my phone in my pocket.
Sean wants justice. The courts, law enforcement, and highly paid personnel at the University of Arkansas are throwing up obstacles. Please help.
Contact us at bohemian_books@yahoo.com if you can represent Sean in Federal Court in Arkansas. We are happy to collaborate on a film or video project. I will continue to post from the video I was able to take during the imprisonment at UAMS.
Podcast Episode: Dr. Prashanth Damalcheruvu: Don’t you know who he is?
Pip: There's a phrase that shows up in legal filings and hospital corridors alike — "I was just reviewing the images." A Higher Law has some thoughts on what that actually means.
Mara: This episode covers reporting by LauraLynnHammett on a civil case involving a patient held at UAMS Medical Center, the doctors named in the record, and what supervisory responsibility actually looks like on paper.
Pip: Let's start with the doctor whose name is on the scans.
Dr. Damalcheruvu and the Limits of "Just Reading Images"
Mara: The core question here is whether a supervising physician can sign orders, bill for services, and oversee a treatment team — then later claim zero responsibility for what that team did to a patient.
Pip: The post lays out what happened first: dozens of doctors and nurses at UAMS held a man against his will for two weeks, performed tests without consent, sedated him, and used four-point restraints — often leaving him naked and exposed.
Mara: Dr. Damalcheruvu's court filing draws a narrow circle around his role. His position, as stated in the document, is that he "is a neuroradiologist, and his alleged involvement was limited to reviewing and interpreting diagnostic imaging within that specialty. He did not order, direct, or control the patient's confinement, the use of force, or any aspect of his custodial care."
Pip: The medical record tells a different story. His name is the only physician name attached to over fifteen hundred dollars in CT scans billed in the first twenty-four hours, and he signed a note directing that the patient be admitted to the STICU for continued neuro exams — without asking the patient's consent.
Mara: The sedation piece matters here too. The patient was given Fentanyl and Lorazepam without consent, which Nurse Lyree Williams described as intended to subdue him. No consent form appears in the record prior to the scans Dr. Damalcheruvu approved.
Pip: Half a million dollars a year to supervise residents, and when the residents are the ones named on the treatment team, suddenly the supervision evaporates. That's a tidy arrangement.
Mara: Arkansas regulation is direct on this point. Seventeen CAR Section 140-3104(c) states that "a graduate registered physician shall be considered the agent of his or her supervising physician in the performance of all practice-related activities, including but not limited to, the ordering of diagnostic, therapeutic, and other medical services."
Pip: So the legal framework already answers the question he's asking the court to leave open.
Mara: The post links the full court filing — Damalcheruvu's reply motion — so readers can check the document directly against what the medical record shows.
Pip: A signature on an admission note, a billing record with one name, and a regulation that says supervisors own their residents' actions. The paper trail tends to be less forgetful than the people who created it.
Mara: More on where that trail leads next time.
Resident M.D. Speaks Out After Termination from Arkansas Children’s Hospital
My dad, Dr. Norman H. Kramer, told me a story repeatedly about something that happened when he was a medical resident in Cincinnati.
He had picked up a patient’s chart after the patient underwent surgery and looked at an X-ray. According to my dad, he immediately blurted out, “This man didn’t need surgery!”
The next thing he knew, he was called into the office of the lead physician who had performed the surgery.
My dad said the doctor warned him that if he ever said anything like that again, he would never practice medicine again.
I have heard that story so many times over the years that I have to wonder whether it has influenced the way I view what happened to Dr. Khammad. Maybe it has given me a bias.
But I have also spoken with Dr. Khammad at length. He comes across to me as competent, sincere, and honest. Importantly, he did not know my father’s story before we spoke. When he described what he experienced and his concerns about disagreeing with hospital policies, his account felt authentic to me.
That is what makes this case so personal for me.
My father’s story has stayed with me because it raised a question that goes far beyond medicine: What happens when someone inside an institution believes that something is wrong and speaks up?
Ideally, the answer should be that the concern is investigated. The person raising it should not have to fear that questioning a decision will cost them their career.
That is not what happens at Arkansas Children’s where Dr. Khammad was a resident or at its affiliated UAMS, apparently.
It is a shame that a resident with a grievance against a hospital could not find an attorney willing to take on the Arkansas medical and legal establishment. Dr. Khammad has decided to take them on himself.
I am rooting for him.
Dr. Prashanth Damalcheruvu: Don’t you know who he is?
Dozens of doctors and nurses at UAMS Medical Center held a man against his will for two weeks, performed whatever tests they wanted, used drugs to sedate him, and bound him to a hospital bed, often naked and exposed.
One of the doctors who was involved from the start is Assistant Professor Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D.
Dr. Damalcheruvu refuses to pay any restitution to the unwilling patient. The highly paid supervisor of the residents at UAMS claimed in court documents that he did not cause the patient to be confined for approximately two weeks and
subject him to force more excessive than allowed in a maximum security prison. Dr. Damalcheruvu claims that he “is a neuroradiologist, and his alleged involvement was limited to reviewing and interpreting diagnostic imaging within that specialty. He did not order, direct, or control [the patient]’s confinement, the use of force, or any aspect of his custodial care.”
The medical record and rudimentary knowledge of the supervisory role of professors in a university hospital contradict the certified document filed on Dr. Damalcheruvu’s behalf. The charges documented over $1,500 for CT Scans and imaging taken in the initial 24 hours with only one doctor’s name, Davalcheruvu.
The medical record calls the people who forced treatment on the patient the trauma team, SICU team and treatment team.
Dr. Damalcheruvu signed a note that says, “Patient will be admitted to STICU for continued neuro exams.” Dr. Damalcheruvu did not ask the patient’s consent to keep him for observation and further testing. The patient was sedated with Fentanyl and Lorazepam without consent which was, according to Nurse Lyree Williams meant to subdue the patient.
The team used four-point restraints to confine the patient. Dr. Damalcheruvu did not mention any of these restraints in his notes.
There was no consent form in the medical record prior to the CT Scans that Dr. D approved.
The patient did not consent to be treated by the residents and students who were under Dr. Damalcheruvu’s supervision.
“A graduate registered physician shall be considered the agent of his or her supervising physician in the performance of all practice-related activities, including but not limited to, the ordering of diagnostic, therapeutic, and other medical services.” 17 CAR Sec. 140-3104(c).
Dr. Damalcheruvu collects over half a million dollars per year as a professor at UAMS. Then, when his team screws up, he claims no responsibility at all. Don’t believe me? Read it here:
UAMS Doctors and Nurses Lie on Medical Records
More than a dozen doctors and nurses lied on a patient’s medical record. The UAMS “team” agreed to use a narrative that would fit the criteria for a level two trauma, despite the patient repeatedly saying he fell about 10-feet.
What could possibly motivate these medical professionals to lie about the mechanism of injury? MONEY.
The rack rate for room and board in the SICU at UAMS Medical Center is about $10,000 per night. I will repeat that, so you know it is not a typo. The published rate for “bed service” in the SICU is about ten thousand dollars per midnight spent there.
Even if the patient refuses treatment and tries to escape.
To be fair, UAMS typically gives a “discount.” In the case of the exaggerated fall, UAMS tried to collect only $4,300 per night from the patient.
When Medicaid offered to pay, even though the patient told Medicaid that UAMS caused most of his medical conditions and held him against his will for two weeks, UAMS dropped the bill down to less than half the patient-payor price. Nice.
For years, I and the patient, my son, said the doctors at UAMS were merely negligent when writing that the fall was 34 or 35 feet repeatedly. But, representatives of The Doctors Insurance and UAMS have written in letters and court docs that there was no negligence.
OK. Then writing that something that did not happen, a fall from over 20 feet, was an intentional lie. Or it was true.
The only witness to the fall was the patient. He said it was from about 10-feet.
A fall from 34 or 35 feet, barring a miracle, would leave the person with some lacerations. This man had none.
His vitals were well within normal, healthy range. His Glascow Coma Scale was 13 or 14, indicative of a mild TBI.
The doctor who diagnosed the patient’s facial fractures wrote “No need to keep admitted from facial fracture standpoint.”
On the triage report, that can be downloaded below, the only indication for calling this a level one, two, or three trauma activation was that someone who was not a witness to the fall said it was 34 or 35 feet. (Hint: The ladder was 35 feet tall.) There was not a check mark for the doctors’ independent judgment that the injuries were consistent with a level one, two or three trauma.
The doctors and nurses did not ask for the surveillance video taken in the UAMS emergency room be preserved. The doctors and nurses involved knew the patient did not consent to treatment. The UAMS medical personnel and their counsel failed to file a petition that is required before holding a patient without consent. Probably they knew that the judge would not force the patient to stay. They thought, it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
But no one is asking forgiveness. Dr. Damalcheruvu’s attorney said Damalcheruvu was not responsible for the alleged starvation, dehydration and unlawful imprisonment because he is merely the medical professor whose specialty is neuro radiology – the one who was involved with taking and interpreting the CT Scans.
The lawyer for Dr. Joseph Margolick, Dr. Benjamin Davis, and Nurse Britney Beumeler said that he was going to defend his clients by attacking my “character and credibility.”
These defendants should be charged with criminal false imprisonment and battery. The UAMS Police Department refuses to even look at the evidence against the doctors and nurses. Every one involved should lose their licenses, and frankly, UAMS should be shut down.
We are happy to share our evidence with anyone who wants to see it. You can contact me at bohemian_books@yahoo.com or go to the clerk’s office at Pulaski county Courthouse and ask for a copy of the thumb drive filed in the case of Sean Lynn and Laura Hammett v. Board of Trustees of University of Arkansas, et al.
Here is the triage activation survey.
UAMS Dr. Damalcheruvu’s Defense: I don’t know nuthin about birthin no babies, Miz Scarlett.
Associate Professor of Medicine at UAMS stated, “plaintiffs’ brief states that Dr. Damalcheruvu ‘order[ed] a man to be drugged, starved and dehydrated against his will[.]’ Pls.’ [citation to pls. brief] This is an inaccurate statement. Dr. Damalcheruvu is a
neuro-radiologist. His alleged involvement, if any, was instead confined to the scope of his specialty as a neuro-radiologist.”
The involuntary patient, Sean Lynn, was held for two weeks against his will. Dr. Damalcheruvu was there on day one. He knew about and apparently approved of the forced fentanyl feeding carried out by nurse Nathan Ernst. Sean did not want to use fentanyl. His pain level was only 2 out of 10 with 10 being highest. Sean wanted to go home.
Instead, Dr. Damalcheruvu continued the false narrative that Sean had a 35-foot free fall onto his head, even though the fall was 10-feet. With no explanation, Dr. Damalcheruvu ordered that Sean be held for observation with no consent. Here is Dr. Damalcheruvu’s note:
“This is an unknown age male, approximately in his 40s, who presents to the ED as a level 2 trauma activation following a fall off a 35 ft ladder. On arrival to the ED he is hemodynamically stable, bradycardic to the 40s, otherwise satting well on non-rebreather. On exam he has obvious trauma to the right temporal region, blood in the left ear, appears altered and is oriented to person. He is following commands. Trauma team was present on patient’s arrival to the bedside. E fast was obtained and was negative. Following primary survey patient was taken to CT scanner where CT head was notable for multiple intracranial hemorrhages, blunt aortic injury. He was started on Keppra. Neurosurgery was consulted. Attending over read is concerning for active temporal hemorrhage. I spoke to on-call Neurology resident and relayed these findings. Patient will be admitted to STICU for continued neuro exams.”
Notice, there was no imminent danger of death or disfigurement noted. There was no mention of coma or incapacity. There was no mention of a petition for court approval to override patient autonomy. There was no mention of attempts to find a surrogate or any family member. In fact, UAMS staff already had Sean’s wallet. They found an expired insurance card, but Dr. Damalcheruvu did not ask anyone to check Sean’s ID for name and date of birth.
Exactly what happened next is unknown, because there are scant notes. Dr. Damalcheruvu should have asked for the surveillance videos always taken in the Emergency Department be preserved. But he didn’t. There is a strong inference that the video would not exonerate Dr. Damalcheruvu from accusations of civil and criminal false imprisonment and battery.
What was seen by Sean’s significant other and me the next morning, after we tracked Sean down, was Sean bound to a bed naked, begging to be released.
That morning Dr. Damalcheruvu wrote: “Longitudinal fracture of the right temporal bone traversing the tegmen mastoideum and anterior and posterior walls of the external auditory canal. No evidence of ossicular disruption or otic capsule involvement. Unremarkable HRCT of the left temporal bone. I personally reviewed the image(s) and, if necessary, I edited the report. I agree with the report as now presented. Electronically Signed by: Prashanth Reddy Damalcheruvu, M.D. on 01/14/2024 at 09:28:27.”
NOTICE: “No evidence of ossicular disruption”
When the medical personnel and security at UAMS finally let Sean leave, two weeks later, the ossicular in his left ear was disrupted. Sean has Hospital Acquired total hearing loss in his left ear.
Dr. Damalcheruvu, who is paid about $560,000 per year, was supervising the residents and students who forced Sean to be a Guinee pig for their medical education.
Now Dr. Damalcheruvu is taking no responsibility for the non-consensual confinement and harmful or offensive contact. The snake even ignored two notices to pick the summons for our civil suit up from the post office for over a week. Then he argued that he was not served summons timely and should be dismissed from the suit because HIS due process was violated.
“I was only acting within my specialty” is not a defense to forcing a man to be drugged, starved and dehydrated in order to observe the man. A person’s professional specialty does not erase responsibility for knowingly participating in conduct that would otherwise be unlawful. The Nuremberg tribunals rejected the broader principle that individuals could avoid responsibility simply because they occupied a specialized role in a larger course of conduct.
WARNING! DO NOT ENTER UAMS MEDICAL CENTER. It may kill you, or cause serious disabilities.
Podcast Episode: UAMS Benjamin Davis M.D. takes legal advice from “council.”
Pip: When a hospital's own medical record contains the phrase "council" where you'd expect "counsel," you have to wonder what other details got similarly blurred.
Mara: This episode covers reporting by LauraLynnHammett on a two-week hospitalization that raises serious questions about legal authority, medical holds, and what a hospital's own documentation actually admits. Let's start with the case at UAMS and what one doctor wrote down.
UAMS Benjamin Davis M.D. takes legal advice from "council."
Pip: The central tension here is whether UAMS had any legal basis to hold a patient named Sean Lynn for two weeks using physical and chemical restraints — and whether the hospital's own legal guidance was accurate.
Mara: Dr. Benjamin Davis documented his reasoning directly in the medical record, and the entry is worth reading closely: "I also discussed the case with CMO of the day (and via CMO, hospital council). All of the above concurred that Arkansas has no statute and UAMS has no policy dictating the terms under which a patient may be placed on medical hold."
Pip: That claim — no statute exists — turns out to be straightforwardly wrong, and the post walks through exactly why.
Mara: Arkansas Code Annotated section 20-9-604 does address this situation. Where a patient refuses care and no valid surrogate exists, treatment may only proceed after a court grants a petition supported by medical certification of necessity. UAMS never filed that petition.
Pip: So the hospital held someone for two weeks, used restraints, and apparently never once asked a court to sign off — which is what the law requires when there's no surrogate.
Mara: The post also notes that a valid surrogate did exist throughout, and that staff refused to share medical information with that surrogate or honor the patient's stated wishes. The argument is that because UAMS didn't acknowledge a valid surrogate, section 20-9-604 applied regardless.
Pip: Two weeks, restraints, no court petition, and counsel advising that no statute exists — that's a significant gap between what the law says and what the hospital told its doctors.
Mara: There's also a factual dispute about Sean Lynn's injury. UAMS consistently documented a fall of thirty to thirty-five feet. The post includes video taken two days after discharge, and Lynn's own account describes jumping from a ten-foot ladder rung. UAMS counsel Sherri Robinson later told the Arkansas Claims Commission that the surrogate agreed to the thirty-five-foot figure on the day of that recording — a claim the post directly contests.
Pip: Two years on, no arrests, no restitution, and the hospital still disputes that any of this happened.
Mara: The underlying question — who holds hospitals accountable when their own legal guidance appears to be wrong — is one that doesn't resolve itself.
Pip: A medical record that doubles as a legal argument, built on advice that misread the law — that's the kind of document that tends to matter later.
Mara: The gap between what institutions say the rules are and what the rules actually say is worth watching. More on that next time.
When Sean was Imprisoned at UAMS, He Should Have Taken Lots of Video
UAMS has a policy against taking video of staff and equipment in the hospital. My son Sean and I are challenging that policy in the Arkansas Circuit Court and may move it to the federal court.
The policy violates the patients’ constitutional right to free speech and equal protection of the law when the patient is held without consent or court order. Probably, when the medical personnel obtain a court order, the court should also require that the involuntary patient be allowed to video his treatment.
The UAMS policy specifies that if a patient or guest is recording and does not stop when asked, the guest should be removed by security. When Sean was imprisoned and I took videos, I was threatened with removal by Nurse Shannon Cobb and others. So I did not video as much as I should have.
But if the patient refuses to stop, what will the doctors and nurses at UAMS do? Throw the patient out?
When Sean tried to leave, the staff tackled him and tied him to a hospital cot. If Sean had tried to video, once bound, he would not be able to. But, there would be footage of the attack.
As it happened, UAMS took surveillance video of the hallway chases and take-downs; but the video was destroyed.
In retrospect, I should have explained to Sean the importance of always making a good record. Even people like Dr. Joseph Margolick and Dr. Nolan Bruce, who are highly paid, powerful government employees, deny holding Sean without consent or court order and refuse to compensate their victim unless he files and wins a lawsuit.
You can see the video I managed to take here. Aphasia Exacerbated at UAMS
Podcast Episode: UAMS Defendants Demanded More Specificity – Nurse Susan Norsworthy
Pip: When a hospital bills you over a hundred thousand dollars for care you never consented to, the least they could do is spell your name right on the invoice. LauraLynnHammett has been doing something harder — building the legal record.
Mara: This episode follows the opposition filings in the UAMS case, specifically the response to Charge Nurse Susan Norsworthy's motion to dismiss. We're covering confinement without consent, the battery and false imprisonment claims, and the immunity arguments. Let's start with what Norsworthy actually did and what the plaintiffs say must now be answered in court.
Norsworthy, the ICU, and a Case That Won't Be Dismissed
Pip: The core question here is whether a charge nurse can participate in holding a patient for two weeks without consent or a court order, administer sedating drugs over his objection, and then walk away from the lawsuit by arguing the complaint wasn't specific enough.
Mara: The filings lay out the timeline precisely. On January 24, 2024, Norsworthy personally administered Dexmedetomidine — a heavy sedative sold as Precedex — to Sean at around 11:44 a.m., without his consent and without consent from his mother Laura. That same afternoon, Laura video recorded a conversation with Norsworthy, and the complaint quotes it directly: "Zaleski said to Hammett again, 'we don't give benzos to TBIs.'"
Pip: So she administered a sedating drug and then told the patient's mother no sedating drugs were being given. That is the definition of the problem.
Mara: And the filings document that Norsworthy did not record the approximately nineteen-minute conversation, nor the one from the day before. On January 21st, she had also chased Sean down a hallway and stairwell with another staff member, and failed to request preservation of the surveillance video afterward.
Mara: The complaint covers Sean's confinement from January 13 through January 27, 2024, during which over seventy-two UAMS clinicians are alleged to have worked in concert to hold him without legal authority, resulting in a bill exceeding $115,000.
Pip: Norsworthy's own motion argued that Sean's communication disabilities meant he wasn't really representing himself. The filings turn that around hard.
Mara: Right. The response notes that Norsworthy had justified Sean's continued confinement by saying he needed to be "with it 100% of the time so he can leave," and then in the motion to dismiss argued those same disabilities don't give rise to compensable damages. The filing calls that position directly inconsistent.
Pip: You used his disability to keep him. You can't then say the disability doesn't count when he wants redress for it.
Mara: On immunity, Norsworthy claimed statutory protection under Arkansas law for non-malicious acts within the scope of employment. The response points out that under Arkansas law, the party asserting immunity bears the burden of proving it — including proving no liability coverage exists. The filing cites City of Little Rock v. Dayong Yang on that point. Norsworthy attempted to shift that burden to the plaintiffs, who say they simply have no way to know about her insurance until discovery.
Mara: The outrage claim is also detailed. The filings allege Norsworthy knew or should have known that Laura would suffer severe emotional distress from witnessing Sean held without consent, and that Norsworthy committed fraud by misrepresenting Sean's condition — including repeating a claim that he had fallen thirty-five feet when the actual fall was approximately ten feet.
Pip: The plaintiffs are willing to amend the complaint to add seventy-one defendant-specific subsections if that's what specificity requires. That's not a bluff — that's a filing strategy.
Mara: The request is clear: deny Norsworthy's motion to dismiss, or grant leave to amend. The filings argue amendment is not futile, and that the existing complaint already states sufficient facts to proceed on claims of false imprisonment, battery, negligence, and outrage against Norsworthy individually.
Pip: What stays with me is the video. Laura recorded it despite being threatened with removal from the premises, and that recording is now exhibit evidence.
Mara: The next filings will address the other defendants. Each one, the plaintiffs say, will get their own subsection — and the same level of detail.
A Higher Law 