Man Sexually Assaults, Urinates On Sleeping Emergency Room Patient

A man sexually assaulted a woman sleeping in a Harlem Hospital emergency room and then urinated on her when she began to wake up.

The 45-year-old woman, whose name is being withheld, fell asleep after being given a painkiller for her injured foot Friday afternoon. She woke up when 49-year-old Tyrone Brown began to sexually assault her around 3 pm.

“She woke up and he was over her, rubbing his penis on her mouth,” the victim’s niece said. As the woman tried to get up and get away from Brown, he began to urinate on her.

“She felt a hot splash on her,” the niece said.

Hospital staff heard the patient screaming and ran into the room. The staff grabbed Brown, who was also being treated at the hospital for an unknown injury. As he was being taken away, he flicked his tongue at the victim.

Hospital police charged Tyrone Brown with committing a criminal sex act, which is a felony. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. A hospital spokeswoman said the incident is being investigated and that the staff has offered the victim and her family counseling.

According to the victim’s niece, she is concerned that she may have contracted a disease from her assailant and is having tests run.

This isn’t the first time a patient has complained of being assaulted at the hospital, but, in that case, the assailant was a hospital employee. In March, an elderly man who was recovering from a motorcycle accident at Temple University Hospital alleged that he was raped by a nurse in her 20s in the middle of the night. The 65-year-old said that the nurse came into his room to give him a bath, but things got very inappropriate after that. The hospital determined that no sexual assault occurred.

What do you think should happen to Tyrone Brown for assaulting and urinating on the patient?

[Photo credit: David R. Carroll / Flickr]