Nurse sent himself nude photos of a patient after taking her phone, Florida sheriff says
A Florida nurse walked away from a patient’s room with her phone in his hand and texted himself nude photos and videos of her, according to an arrest report.
The patient’s Apple Watch alerted her to the three photos and video sent from her phone as she lay in her hospital bed at Baptist South Hospital in Jacksonville, on April 27, News 4 Jax reported.
The nurse, Luke Waski, 33, was arrested on charges of video voyeurism and sexually cyberharassing another person that same day, according to a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office arrest report obtained by McClatchy News.
Waski, who had been recently hired as a nurse at Baptist South, was also fired after the incident, a Baptist Health spokesperson told McClatchy News in a statement on May 11.
Information regarding an attorney for Waski wasn’t immediately available.
“This is very disappointing and unacceptable behavior,” the Baptist Health spokesperson said.
Initially, the patient had asked Waski if he could use her phone to make a call for her and let an unspecified individual know she’s “okay,” the arrest report says.
She unlocked her device and gave it to Waski, who walked out of the room with it, according to the arrest report.
At some point, the patient yelled “he has my phone,” the report says.
Waski returned to her room with blankets and told the woman he didn’t have her phone when she asked for it back, according to the report.
Then, she spotted her phone in the middle of the blankets he brought in, the report says.
Surveillance footage captured Waski leaving the patient’s room and going inside a bathroom before coming out and grabbing blankets from a nurse’s station, according to the sheriff’s office. Waski walked back into the patient’s room with the blankets, the report says.
The woman found the text messages Waski sent to himself in her phone’s “recently deleted” messages, according to News 4 Jax.
Waski was ultimately arrested at his home, according to the sheriff’s office.
The Baptist Health spokesperson said the hospital reported the incident to the Florida Department of Health, which shares information with the Florida Board of Nursing.
This story was originally published May 11, 2023 at 11:34 AM with the headline "Nurse sent himself nude photos of a patient after taking her phone, Florida sheriff says."
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