By EMS1 Staff
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A former EMT claims she was fired for reporting on-duty sexual harassment by her male colleague, according to a lawsuit.
Southside Daily reported that 13-year EMS veteran Suzanne Grimes is suing Sentara Healthcare, who she said fired her after she filed a complaint that her male colleague made sexually explicit comments about her body and his genitals.
Grimes said the colleague began harassing her about seven months before she filed a complaint with her supervisor and human resources.
Grimes said the man also discussed sexual encounters with other women and showed Grimes a picture of his genitals, occasionally asking her if she would touch his genitals, according to the lawsuit.
The man allegedly exposed himself to Grimes two weeks before she filed the complaint and asked Grimes if he could touch her breasts while he gave her a neck massage.
Grimes said the colleague was hostile toward her after she rejected his advances, but when she reported him, human resources accused her of “falsifying” information about where they were when one of the incidents occurred and that she could not be believed because she needed help remembering an exact date.
Grimes was terminated and a human resources official said Grimes “made the incident up and, in doing so, had destroyed her credibility with management and her relationship with her co-workers.”