Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.
For a brief time in 2004, Kenyan acrobat Robert Nzovi soared high in Las Vegas, thinking he had made it to the big time.
But he crashed hard, falling from the top of a five-man pyramid and breaking his neck during a performance at the Desert Passage at the Aladdin. It was his second day on a job that, despite its obvious dangers, offered neither health insurance nor workers' compensation coverage.
Several surgeries and 21 months in a Summerlin nursing home as a Clark County indigent-care patient did little to improve the 28-year-old performer's condition. Nzovi remained paralyzed from the neck down, on a respirator and in need of 24-hour nursing care.
He died on July 15.
Estimates are that it cost Clark County taxpayers at least $1.3 million to care for Nzovi after his June 12, 2004, fall.
Nzovi and taxpayers were victimized by arguably antiquated state laws - one of them 59 years old - that allow promoters, producers and booking agents to forego health and workers' compensation insurance if their workers are considered independent contractors instead of employees.
The state's workers' compensation law, passed in 1947, exempts "any person engaged as a theatrical or stage performer or in an exhibition."
There is also some question, according to his family, if the poorly educated Nzovi clearly understood what he was signing. His $500-a-week Las Vegas contract read: "No insurance is available for artist from operator. Artist agrees to provide ... own medical insurance."
Further, there is the broader question: Should taxpayers be forced to bear such staggering costs when something goes horribly wrong in a multimillion-dollar industry?
"This (issue) is worthy of public discussion and debate to see if a solution can be reached," said Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, chairwoman of the Assembly Health and Human Services Committee. "It is emblematic of the health care crisis in our nation."
Saying Nevada has the nation's fourth-highest rate for uninsured health care, Leslie cautioned that it may not be effective to repair a small problem without taking steps to address the larger issue.
"If we take care of this one loophole, it would be just a drop in the bucket," she said. "The bigger picture is to find ways for all people to be covered."
The exact amount the county spent to keep Nzovi alive could not be determined.
Clark County officials, citing state privacy laws that prohibit social workers from revealing the names of people who have applied for public assistance, declined to confirm that Nzovi received any financial aid, let alone discuss his case.
Nzovi's family members, however, said they learned the county was picking up the tab when they received correspondence from it seeking income information to prove Nzovi was indigent.
Nzovi's family and others estimated that as of January 2005, the cost of Nzovi's spinal operations at University Medical Center plus round-the-clock care totaled about $1 million, based on costs listed in paperwork provided by the county.
County officials said the daily cost for the type of post-surgical care Nzovi received, which included a ventilator, is about $520 a day. So, the post-surgical tab from January 2005 until his death would be just under $300,000.
The county spent $40.8 million on indigent medical care for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2005, county officials said, noting that the most recent fiscal year's expenditures are not yet available.
While industry officials said the majority of Las Vegas entertainers - especially those in major Strip productions - are covered with health insurance or workers' compensation, specialty acts such as acrobats or wandering minstrels often are not.
Some performers apparently like it that way because no taxes or insurance premiums are deducted from their pay. And promoters like the fact they save about 10 percent by not providing insurance, industry observers have said.
In addition to insurance not being mandatory for independent contractors, the Nevada Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the state Labor Commission have no jurisdiction to investigate incidents such as Nzovi's fall, state officials have said.
Chuck Verre, chief administrator for the Nevada Division of Industrial Relations, which oversees workers' compensation, said last week that many show producers voluntarily cover their independent contractors with workers' compensation because it is a no-fault system.
Under no-fault, he said, the employer cannot be sued for negligence, which eliminates lengthy litigation and provides immediate care for the injured worker.
Nzovi's family said they didn't sue the promoter or venue because local attorneys either declined to take the case or wanted at least $10,000 up front.
During his convalescence, Nzovi, the father of an 8-year-old girl in Kenya, was visited by two church groups, members of which want to see state laws changed to protect taxpayers and the afflicted.
"Without insurance, Robert got no rehabilitation," said Troy Oglesbee, who regularly brought members of the Church of God 7th Day youth group to the nursing home to comfort Nzovi. "They (medical personnel) just kept him alive."
Oglesbee, whose group started the Robert Nzovi Foundation and raised $3,800 to bring Nzovi's mother, Umazi Ngala, to Las Vegas this year to visit her son, said a law is needed to require promoters to carry "minimal liability insurance" for their independent contractors.
"I'd be on a plane to Carson City today if legislators would give me a chance to talk to them about it," Oglesbee said.
Kenyan-born Benjamin Njuguna, who heads a committee of the local African Christian Church that helped raise $6,000 to defray Nzovi's burial costs, echoed that sentiment.
"Robert wanted to see Nevada law changed to provide insurance to others in his line of work," Njuguna said. "If there was a bill in his name, he felt everybody would learn of his career and that the changes would help others down the road."
Nzovi, who was raised in a grass shack with clay floors, worked regularly as an acrobat for five years, appearing in television on "The Steve Harvey Show," at Disney theme parks and during halftime shows at Harlem Globetrotters exhibition basketball games.
For his fateful Las Vegas show, Nzovi was asked by the other performers to be the top man on the standing five-man pyramid - a position to which the 5-foot-6, 140-pound acrobat was not accustomed.
A videotape of the performance shows Nzovi atop what appeared to be a shaky, towering human structure. During the dismount, Nzovi dove into a front flip and landed on his neck.
After the accident, Nzovi's brother, Juma, an acrobat with an Indiana-based troupe, quit his job and took a graveyard-shift laundry job at Robert's nursing home just to be close to him.
"I retired from being an acrobat because of what happened to Robert," said Juma, 34, one of Robert's eight siblings. "The money is good, but it is so dangerous. And when you get seriously injured, there is no one there to help you."
About 100 people attended Nzovi's graveside services Saturday at Palm Mortuary-Eastern.
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