Search Here

A Minnesota man allegedly impersonated Pink Floyd lead guitarist Dave Gilmour in order to receive treatment at a hospital in lieu of health insurance. He has been booked into jail, possibly facing charges of theft by swindle. The hospital says that he may have talked them out of $100,000 in care.

According to KARE 11, St. Cloud Hospital in Minnesota said that the man entered the hospital for treatment. He said that he was Dave Gilmour and that he did not have health insurance. He also said that Pink Floyd was on tour in Canada, which is why he had stopped in Saint Cloud, Minnesota for a break. While at the hospital, he was treated and left, but not before signing an autograph for one of the employee's sons.

However, the brush with fame made some of the hospital security staff suspicious. Some of this mistrust arose because, while the man employed a British accent, according to CBS Minnesota, they doubted that the man's accent matched with the one that the English Pink Floyd front man would have had. They flagged his chart in the event that he ever returned. Finally, the suspicions came to a head when the head of security compared camera footage of the man in question to pictures of Dave Gilmour on the Internet. With those comparisons, it seems that the misgivings were confirmed.

Four days after he had first walked into the hospital, the man returned, presenting proof that he had insurance from Lloyd's of London. While he was being treated in the emergency room, security staff approached a police officer who was at the hospital for an unrelated matter, where they reported the Dave Gilmour impersonator. At that point, the police officer confronted the man, who confessed that he was not Dave Gilmour.

The man is reportedly 53 years old and from Monticello, Minnesota, a far cry from the 67-year-old musician from Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

He was taken to jail, but was released from the facility earlier this week. In the meantime, the police are gathering evidence with which to charge him with a crime.