Patricia VanLester, a 41-year-old former Wal-Mart employee, has received thousands of dollars from the discount giant in injury and workers' compensation settlements, records show.
VanLester was first in line to grab a $29 DVD player Nov. 28 and was knocked to the ground by a frenzy of shoppers. Paramedics found VanLester unconscious on top of a DVD player.
Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman said he had no details about the past settlements, including one filed by VanLester's sister.
"We're going to investigate this claim as thoroughly as we have investigated the other 10 claims that this woman and her sister have brought against us in the past," he said.
A case manager for VanLester's attorney, David Sweat, said Friday that the lawyer wouldn't comment on his client's past claims. Sweat told Orlando's WKMG-TV that his client hasn't filed a formal injury claim against Wal-Mart from last week's incident.
Mark O'Keefe, a spokesman for EVAC Ambulance, which treated VanLester at the store and airlifted her to a hospital, said VanLester was admitted to the hospital's trauma center. "The hospital admitted this woman for two days," he said Friday.
VanLester's previous claims date to at least 1987. She collected more than $1,800 in workers' compensation claims for slip-and-fall incidents at a Publix supermarket and another Wal-Mart in 1995 and 1996.
In another claim, she said she slipped on a puddle of hand lotion in 1991 while shopping at an Orange City Walgreen's pharmacy, causing "permanent injury, disability, disfigurement (and) mental anguish." The case was thrown out.
posted by Chris O. @ 12/05/2003 11:13:00 AM
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