Orlando Garcia, a resident of Kensington, was having a rough night. The 52-year old man claims he suffers from severe, chronic migraine headaches that are debilitating and cause vomiting, blindness, fever and extremely high blood pressure.

  “Sometimes it feels like a heart attack. Sometimes it feels like a brain injury,” Garcia said.

  Garcia was trying to get some sleep on the night of September 27th, when he began suffering from one of his migraines. According to him, he woke up shortly before 11PM and drove to Temple University Hospital (3401 N Broad St.) to receive treatment.

  Upon arrival, Garcia, who has government health insurance, was subjected to screening from AlliedBarton security guards before entering the emergency room. AlliedBarton (AB) is the private security force hired by Temple University at their campus and hospital locations.

  As Garcia waited in the ER, he says his symptoms grew worse. He claims to have told security guards that his condition needed to be taken as a priority. That’s when Garcia says things got a little out of hand. According to Garcia, the security guards told him, “You’re not special. You don’t need special treatment.”

  According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S. Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment Act in 1986. This law makes it illegal for any medicare participating hospital that offers emergency treatment to not do an examination of the patient and take the proper steps to stabilize their condition, regardless of pay.

  Garcia acknowledges words were exchanged with security following the remark, but claims he made no physical advance toward the three Allied Barton security officers who were stationed in the ER. Of the three security officers, two were male and one was female.

  Garcia says that the female officer continued to badger him. “The female (security guard) kept running her mouth, she was just irking me. I said she should just mind her business, ain’t nobody talking to you,” Garcia said. “That’s when everything blew a fuse. (One of the male guards) came, he grabbed me and threw me out.

  According to Garcia, the security staff pushed him up against the wall outside the hospital, “threw” him across the sidewalk and into the street where ambulances were parked. He also alleges that the security guards called the police on him. “The Temple policeman came,” Garcia said. “(The security guards) called the police, then they made a scene like I was the bad guy.”

  Garcia says that the police did not charge him with anything, they simply asked him to leave the premises. Garcia states that after this occurred, one of the male security guards asked him to come into the hospital to be checked out. Garcia says he would only allow them to record his blood pressure, which he says was 210/100. The average blood pressure for a 50-year old man is more than 120/80 and less than 140/90.

  According to Garcia, he was asked to sit in the ER waiting area and he remained there for three hours. After not being seen, Garcia says his vision was getting bad, so he reluctantly drove to Aria Frankford hospital despite his symptoms.

  Garcia says he had his blood pressure checked again at Aria Frankford and it was still dangerously high. Garcia says he was immediately treated for his initial condition, but not for the injuries sustained at Temple University Hospital.

  “(Aria Frankford) was real good, not because they treated me the way I should be treated, because they did what was supposed to be done for a person like me,” Garcia said.

  Garcia claims he filed assault charges against the security officer at the Broad and Tioga Temple University Police station. According to Garcia, he’s previously suffered from serious back problems and being thrown out of the ER has brought back this pain.

  He also showed Spirit News a large bruise on his arm that he claims is where the security guard grabbed him. Garcia, who was formerly a security officer supervisor himself, does not believe the guards acted properly.

  “The security guards should have some kind of a training from police departments,” Garcia said. “I was a security guard before and I was a supervisor. Sometimes we got little assholes that wanna be policemen and they’re not, they’re only security guards. We had a lot of problems with them.”

  An article published in May 2016 on Philly.com highlights a recent merger of AlliedBarton, which is based in Conshohocken, and Universal Services of America, based in California. According to the article, the new company, AlliedUniversal, will bring in $4.5 billion in sales and be accountable for 15 percent of the security guard industry.

  Spirit News read through reviews of AlliedBarton that were posted on the employment website Indeed.com.

  One older post from a woman in Brooklyn claims that AB took over the security company she was working for. The person was required to go to what she describes as a “stupid” orientation and claims AB wanted to cut the staff from 23 to 20. The person goes on to describe AB as “The worst security company I have ever worked for,” and she also adds, “At least I receive five months of unemployment due to Allied’s screw ups.”

  Another post from 11 months ago describes another situation where a security guard had been working for a mall with an in-house security detail. When AlliedBarton took over, this person claims the quality of security guards went down. The person writes, “They brought in people who had suspended drivers licences, were smoking marijuana on duty, having sex in the work vehicle and were under investigation for crimes such as burglary.” The person also writes, “They only give a saliva drug test which only will bust you if you smoked marijuana in the last 5 days. They give you the answers to the test during orientation. The test are already dumbed down for the dumbest people so they can hire anyone.”

  According to Garcia, after leaving a voicemail with AlliedBarton, he was contacted by a representative from the company who stated that there would be an investigation.

  Spirit News also left a message with AlliedBarton, asking for comment on the actions of the security guard in this case. They have yet to respond to our inquiry.

  We also contacted the Temple Health Services Office of Communications and were referred to communications director Jeremy Walter. He replied via email to us stating, “We are aware of the complaint and an investigation is ongoing.”

  Spirit News will update this story as it progress.

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