“They were standing at the door blocking me from coming in, and I wasn't trying to push past them, but I was trying to explain that I'm a mother and that's my child, and I should at least know what's going on with him,” Diane Orlando said.
Diane Orlando says from 9:40 PM Thursday night till roughly 2:00 AM Friday, security guards at St. John Hospital denied her entry. Her son, 22-year-old Calvin Miller, was being treated there for a gunshot wound.
“He's fighting. He's on life support. There's pretty much nothing else they can do,” Orlando said.
Extended interview: Diane Miller talks about her frustration over not being able to see injured son
Detroit police say Miller was shot near Chandler Park Drive and Lenox Thursday night. He was rushed to St. John in critical condition.
“They told mom not only can we not give you information, but you have to wait outside in the cold, wouldn't even let mom go into the waiting area,” Quincy Smith said. “She had to stand out here in the cold with no answers.”
Smith from Team Pursuit, a Detroit Community Violence Intervention group, was with Orlando Thursday night. She says a security guard coming in during shift change would eventually escort her into the hospital.
Extended interview: 'She had to stand out here in the cold.' Executive director of local community violence intervention group shares more about hospital incident
When Orlando left and returned later Friday morning, she claims security guards denied her entry again, until a supervisor intervened.
“He told me it was unacceptable and me, being a mother, I should've never been denied,” Orlando said. “He apologized for their behavior, but it's still unacceptable to me that my son was laying in there like that with no type of answers except to go home and come back tomorrow.”
Hospitals typically have identification procedures for visitors of gunshot patients to ensure security. Smith claims he addressed that, but to no avail.
“Once DPD identified mom and I got a call personally from the 5th precinct to say, ‘Quincy, mom is good, she's all set with us.’ We cleared identification. In fact, an officer was going to walk mom back there. But they still denied her,” Smith said.
Henry Ford Health provided a statement saying:
We strive every day to treat our patients, their families and visitors with respect, kindness and compassion – and their health and safety is our top priority. We are always committed to working with any patient or family who expresses concerns about their experience at one of our care facilities.
If anyone has information about the shooting, please call Detroit police or Crimestoppers at 1800-Speak-Up.
