She’s Alleging a Fall From Grace at Rally : Lawsuit: A 78-year-old woman says evangelist Morris Cerullo’s followers broke her ankle during a gathering in Anaheim last year.

The 78-year-old woman went to the Anaheim evangelical rally hoping to see miraculous healing by a charismatic preacher. She went home in need of physical healing--from a broken ankle she suffered when fervent followers fell on her.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday against the event’s organizer, Morris Cerullo World Evangelism, the city of Anaheim and its convention center, the Sylmar woman alleges she was injured when several hypnotized people, including one “large lady” who weighed an estimated 250 pounds, fell on her last August.

Constantina Estele Pando de Saroli was attending her first evangelical rally and had managed to reach the front of the hall, near the podium where Morris Cerullo “fostered, incited, encouraged, stimulated, motivated” the crowd, according to the suit filed in Orange County Superior Court.

At one point, the large woman and several others collapsed on Pando de Saroli while praying, according to the suit, which seeks at least $10,000 in damages.

When Pando de Saroli screamed in pain, the preacher told her to stay put and he would heal her with prayer, according to her attorney, Paul Bershin.

Medical treatment was hampered by organizers’ failure to provide open space to evacuate injured people, Bershin said.

The lawyer added that the evangelical group and the city should have known they would need crowd control and clear exit routes at the convention center since the minister was “hypnotizing, enrapturing, placing people in trances and in general causing people to lose control over their bodies” and “collapse on other people.”

Cerullo’s office has refused to comment on the lawsuit, and city and convention officials said they were unaware of it.

Anthony Stashik, deputy city attorney of Anaheim, said a previous claim from Pando de Saroli was forwarded to Morris Cerullo World Evangelism since they are required to indemnify the city under their convention center rental agreement.

News reports of Morris Cerullo’s performances, held around the globe, describe auditoriums filled with thousands of people swaying in hypnotic trances as Cerullo calls upon them to accept God’s healing. Amid a heavy gospel beat, Cerullo and members of his audience provide testimonials of miraculous healing of blindness, heart conditions and bone deformities.