That must have been one hell of a sermon!
A disabled elderly man is suing his Bronx church, saying parishioners rushing to find seats for a Sunday service knocked over his wheelchair in a holy scrum that left him with a broken hip.
Mora Moore, 77, and his wife, Janie Williams, want Trinity Baptist Church to fork over $4.2 million in damages because an usher, who volunteered to push him to his regular pew, abandoned him in a crowded vestibule to run an errand, the lawsuit charges.
As the sanctuary doors of the East 224th Street church opened on April 1, “one or more” of the stampeding faithful smacked the wheelchair, sending Moore crashing sideways to the floor, his lawyer, Herbert Moreira-Brown, said.
Several parishioners fell in the heap, and one landed squarely on Moore, who was rushed to Montefiore Medical Center, where doctors operated on his left hip to pin it back into place, the suit says.
It goes on, “The Trinity Baptist Church was aware of the potential danger of leaving a wheel[chair]-bound parishioner unattended.”
Church officials declined to comment.