Disturbing video footage shows a man crawling out of a hospital in Canada after doctors believed he was “faking” his intense leg pain.
David Pontone, 45, is seen on all fours dragging himself out of Toronto’s Humber River Hospital after his early discharge – as staffers dismiss his problem as psychological, according to CBC News.
“They thought I was pretending because I was bipolar,” Pontone told CBC of the incident in April 2018. The surveillance footage was only released after the news channel obtained it.
“There are no words to describe what I went through that night.”
At the hospital check-in, Pontone – who was later diagnosed with a rare nerve disorder – told staff that he is on medication for bipolar disorder, but has been stable for seven years.
But revealing his history of mental health prompted a doctor to order an MRI and refer him to an on-call psychiatrist, CBC News reported.
Despite Pontone complaining that he was in painful physical pain, the psychiatrist wrote that “anxiety” was his most dominant symptom, according to medical data obtained by the Canadian broadcaster.
Another entry in the hospital record states that Pontone’s visit was due to his “bipolar” and does not even mention that he had difficulty walking.
When the MRI revealed no unusual results, a psychiatrist fired Pontone – forcing him to crawl out of the hospital on all fours.
“The pain was excruciating,” said Pontone. “It was impossible to walk properly.”
At certain points in the newly acquired images, Pontone is shown struggling on the ground with a nurse standing next to him.
‘The nurse kept saying,’ You’re a big boy! You are strong! Come on, big boy, get up! Pontone said. “I was angry. I felt totally helpless.”
It took Pontone about 20 minutes to reach the exit and a guard then helped him into a taxi.
An ambulance later took him to Toronto Western Hospital, where a neurologist diagnosed Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a condition in which a person’s immune system attacks nerves.
Medical workers often overlook serious physical health problems in people with mental illness, experts told the outlet.
“We are sadly abandoning this population,” said Dr. Vicky Stergiopoulos, psychiatrist and chief physician at the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. “[The system] is flawed and we need to see people better as people. “
The chief nurse at Toronto’s Humber River Hospital, Vanessa Burkoski, later apologized, Pontone’s family told the outlet.
Hospital spokesman Joe Gorman sent a statement saying the hospital is “deeply concerned” by the incident and that the employees involved have been “dealt with accordingly.”