A 21-year-old went to the hospital with a broken ankle, and 14 hours later her family got a call that she was brain dead, a lawsuit says

The family of Dale Alice Martin has initiated a lawsuit against Waterbury Hospital, claiming that medical malpractice led to the death of their 21-year-old daughter. The young university student arrived at the facility in April with a fractured ankle sustained during farm work, only to be declared brain dead just 14 hours later.

As reported by the LADbible, according to the lawsuit, the medical staff administered an accidental overdose of narcotics, which caused the patient to stop breathing and enter cardiac arrest. Her father, Lindsay Martin, noted that the situation initially felt manageable. “It didn’t seem like a very complicated medical issue,” he recalled.

The legal complaint alleges that the medication suppressed her breathing while simultaneously sedating her, leaving her unable to call for help. “No one checked on Dale during this time. The same medications that were interfering with Dale’s breathing were also sedating her,” the lawsuit stated. “Dale could not even call for help as she suffocated. At 7 a.m. on April 10, a Waterbury Hospital nurse finally checked on Dale. It was far too late. Her heart had stopped beating.”

The hospital was also reportedly under extreme financial strain

Christopher Mattei, an attorney from the firm Koskoff, Koskoff & Bieder representing the family, provided an assessment of the incident. “Within 14 hours of admission, providers at the hospital had administered so much pain medication that Dale stopped breathing and later died,” Mattei said. 

He also suggested that the systemic issues at the facility played a significant role in the outcome. “We will obviously learn more about the extent to which Prospect’s mismanagement of Waterbury Hospital contributed to the specific circumstances on the night that Dale died,” he added.

Investigations into the hospital revealed it was reportedly owned by Prospect Medical Holdings, a California-based company that had filed for bankruptcy just three months before the incident. Mattei suggested that the facility was struggling to maintain basic operations due to corporate decisions.

“But what we expect to find is that this was a hospital that was largely operating on fumes as a result of Prospect dismantling infrastructure within the hospital, reducing staff, training, and finding every way possible to extract value out of the hospital in a way that jeopardised care,” he stated.

The hospital was reportedly under such extreme financial strain that nurses were allegedly buying food for patients. Lindsay Martin noted that his family was completely unaware of these conditions until after his daughter had passed away. He emphasized that the situation was dictated by geography rather than choice. “Dale did not have a choice of where to go,” he said. “She was brought to the nearest hospital.”

The ownership of the facility has since changed hands. Waterbury Hospital was reportedly purchased by Hartford HealthCare and is currently operated by UConn Health. A spokesperson for the facility provided a brief statement regarding the standards of the hospital, noting, “The quality, safety, and well-being of our patients are our top priority.”