NOT SO HOT IN CLEVELAND! BROWNS PLAYER SUES TEAM FOR ALMOST KILLING HIM!!

Bentley never played a down for Cleveland…and probably wishes he never came there!

Forget what TV Land is telling you…it’s not so hot in Cleveland these days! First LeBron leaves…now former Browns center LeCharles Bentley is suing the club for negligence that led to a career-ending staph infection at the team’s training facility. The former player claims the infection nearly killed him! SMH…Read on.

Bentley’s attorney, Shannon Polk, said the lawsuit filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court seeks at least $25,000 in damages for alleged fraud and negligent misrepresentation. Bentley could seek more money in court.

Polk said Bentley nearly died from the infection while he was rehabbing from a knee injury.

“They told him their facility was the best,” Polk said. “But they never told him about a host of unsanitary conditions there. And they never told him about the list of others who contracted staph before he chose to rehab there.”

The Browns declined to comment on Thursday.

Bentley never played a game for the Browns after signing a six-year, $36 million contract as a free agent. He tore his left patellar tendon in training camp in 2006, and his career never recovered after the infection.

In 2007, Bentley told The Associated Press that he had undergone four operations since getting hurt, the final two to clean out the staph infection, which ate away at his tendon. The virus became so severe that doctors considered amputating his leg.

“At one point, I was so sick they weren’t sure I was going to live through the night,” Bentley told the AP.

The lawsuit alleges the Browns’ training facility in suburban Berea has been portrayed to players and player prospects “as a world-class facility at which `state-of-the-art’ physical training, medical care and treatment and other rehabilitative services are provided.”

Bentley’s repaired knee became swollen and he was diagnosed with staph infection within weeks of beginning rehabilitation at the facility in July 2006, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also says the Browns failed to sanitize equipment.

The Browns had at least six players stricken with some sort of staph infection in recent years, including former receiver Joe Jurevicius, who settled a similar lawsuit with the team in June. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

When the Jurevicius lawsuit was settled, team attorney Fred Nance said the Browns’ sanitation and hygiene practices “have been and continue to be at the highest state-of-the-art level in the league.”

The Browns’ alarming rise in staph cases spurred the club to request assistance from the Cleveland Clinic, its health care provider and a sponsor. The Clinic twice sent a team to examine the team’s headquarters and indoor practice field house in Berea.

The Clinic concluded the team was following proper procedure and CDC recommendations to prevent staph and that the five cases involving players were unrelated.

Browns players Brian Russell, Ben Taylor, Kellen Winslow and Braylon Edwards also battled staph.

“Had the Browns disclosed that stuff to him, had they been straight with him, he would have never agreed to rehab at their training facility,” Polk said.

Something is obviously wrong at that training facility. When you have that many cases of players getting staph infections on your team, something is undoubtedly wrong. Poor Cleveland. What’s next? I guess the river will set ablaze again!

SOURCE: HUFFINGTON POST