A Brooklyn pharmacist terrified of Ebola called 911 to falsely report that a sick woman in her store had the deadly virus, according to a lawsuit.
Rhonda Hutson was feeling nauseous when she stopped into the CVS on Kings Highway to pick up medications last year. While inside the Marine Park store, Hutson vomited inside a bag — and was smacked with a paranoid response.
“For no reason, and without Hutson having requested it, the pharmacist . . . called EMS,” Hutson claims in a Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit.
The druggist then “falsely” reported that Hutson told “her that she had recently traveled from Africa.”
Hutson, who hails from Barbados, “has lived in the United States for many years and has never set foot in Africa,” she says in court papers filed against CVS.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa killed more than 11,000 people. Four US health-care workers who’d traveled to and from the region got sick, sparking widespread fears the virus would soon spread to America.
But Hutson didn’t have Ebola. The 60-year-old au pair was simply reacting to new blood-pressure medication, she says.
“I had eaten not enough and the tablet was making my stomach crazy,” she told The Post. “The pharmacist asked if I wanted an ambulance, and I said no, because I knew what it was. Seven or eight minutes later, there were paramedics there, asking how long it had been since I was back from Africa. I was like, ‘Africa? I’m from Barbados, the Caribbean.’
“I wasn’t treated fairly . . . No one wanted to come near me, not even to give me a tissue,” she said.
The lies threw the store into a panic. The cashier refused to touch Hutson’s money, so she “gave Hutson her medications for free,” court papers said.
Hutson was eventually allowed to leave, said her lawyer, Robert Tolchin.
“But then she’s getting follow-up phone calls from the state, asking to monitor her condition,” he added.
The pharmacist also lied to the state Health Department, reporting Hutson as a potential Ebola case and repeating the claim that the woman had just traveled from Africa, Hutson charges.
“If a person in the street had this kind of reaction, you assume they’re an uneducated person and you can maybe understand it. But a pharmacist? They’re supposed to be trained,” Tolchin said.
Hutson is seeking unspecified damages for the incident.”
CVS called its decision to call an ambulance for Hutson “appropriate given the symptoms she was exhibiting.”