Suit: Penthouse Club stripper ruptured man's bladder at bachelor party

THE "Bachelor's Package" at the Penthouse Club, in Port Richmond, includes an invitation onstage and doting attention from the dancers.

But for one Montgomery County man, it also came with internal bleeding, according to a lawsuit filed in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court last week.

Patrick Gallagher, of Lansdale, claims that a dancer slid down a stripper pole and landed on him with such force that she ruptured his bladder.

The incident occurred in late November 2010, when Gallagher visited the club, on Castor Avenue near Balfour Street, with friends to celebrate his impending marriage, said his attorney, Neil T. Murray.

His friends bought him the bachelor's package, and the dancers brought him onstage, directing him to lie flat on his back beneath the pole, Murray said.

One dancer shimmied up the pole, and "from a great height, she launched herself down onto his abdomen," Murray said.

The boom left the groom in such severe pain that he and his friends left. By the next morning, Gallagher was suffering so much that he went to the hospital, where doctors diagnosed a ruptured bladder that required surgery to repair, Murray said. Murray said that Gallagher also suffered nerve damage in his back and hip.

The lawsuit accuses the club of negligence and seeks at least $50,000 for medical costs, pain, humiliation and mental anguish.

A club manager referred comment to the owner, whom the Daily News was unable to reach.

Court records show that Gallagher's lawsuit is one of several filed in recent years against the club. The other lawsuits allege a beating by bouncers, a slip-and-fall injury, overserving of alcohol and the unauthorized use of a woman's photographs in club advertisements.

The club also caught headlines last November, when police arrested seven dancers and a manager on prostitution charges.