09/20/2026
Newly released surveillance video shows a patient chasing and striking workers in the Jackson Memorial Hospital emergency room on May 30, then repeatedly punching nurse Yanira Eguileor and knocking her to the floor before staff pulled him away.
⚖️ The lawsuit
Eguileor, a career trauma nurse, is suing Jackson Memorial and Miami-Dade County for $5 million, alleging inadequate security. Her attorney, Michael Pizzi, says the public is only seeing the footage because he filed a second lawsuit to force its release, and a judge ordered the hospital to turn it over.
Eguileor says she stepped in when the patient, identified in reports as 44-year-old Wenyou Rubin, was about to strike a colleague. "It was a total of three bashes to the head," she told WSVN. Pizzi says she was left semi-unconscious with injuries to her head, neck, spine, and back that required CT scans.
🏥 The hospital's response
Jackson Health System says four public safety specialists are assigned to the ER around the clock and that its first officer reached the scene within seconds. Responding to a whistleblower claim, the hospital alleges it discovered unauthorized access to protected health information by Eguileor. Neither side's account has been tested in court.
📊 The bigger picture
In Nurse.org's 2026 State of Nursing survey of 2,090 nurses, 27% said they were physically assaulted at work in the past year, including more than half of ER nurses. Yet only 54% who experienced an incident formally reported it.
What would meaningful protection actually look like on your unit?
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