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OCOEE, Fla., Jan. 20 (UPI) -- A nurse on duty when Tiger Woods was wheeled into a Florida hospital after crashing his car into a tree sued the hospital, alleging it defamed his reputation. David Rothenberg, a nurse for 26 years, alleges administrators at Health Central Hospital in Ocoee, near Orlando, wrongly accused him of illegitimately accessing Woods' confidential medical records, and then violated his rights by sharing his name with Woods's attorney and private investigator.
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The nurse also alleges the hospital told staff members and other medical professionals about the allegations.
"This isn't something I do. This is not me," Rothenberg told WKMG-TV, Orlando.
Rothenberg, who was let go after the incident, asks in the lawsuit for his old job back and seeks $130,000 to cover lost wages and public humiliation.
The hospital had no immediate comment on the lawsuit.
Rothenberg said the hospital wrongly accused him because his computer login name showed up as having accessed "something to do with Tiger Woods' lab results."
But Rothenberg alleges someone else inside the hospital improperly gained access to Woods' records using his computer login and password.
He further claims the hospital should not have stored sensitive medical information on an insecure computer system anyway. Doing so violates federal medical privacy laws and internal policies, he says.
Woods' Nov. 27, 2009, accident set off a wave of revelations about his personal life and reports of marital infidelities linking him to multiple women.
