A 21-year-old college student went to a Connecticut hospital for treatment after breaking her ankle while working on a farm. Hours later, she was left brain-dead after allegedly receiving a dangerous amount of pain medication, according to a lawsuit filed by her family.
Dale Alice Martin, a Manhattan native who lived in Bethlehem, Connecticut, died on April 10, 2025, following treatment at Waterbury Hospital. Her family alleges that medical providers gave her excessive amounts of medication, ultimately causing her to stop breathing and suffer cardiac arrest.
The lawsuit, filed by the family’s attorney, Christopher Mattei, raises questions about the care Dale received and the circumstances surrounding her death.
“Within 14 hours of admission, providers at the hospital had administered so much pain medication that Dale stopped breathing and later died,” the lawsuit states, according to New York Post.
The filing also alleges that no one checked on her.
“The same medications that were interfering with Dale’s breathing were also sedating her. 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.”
Dale Alice Martin’s tragic death
An autopsy determined that Dale died from cardiac arrest after receiving multiple painkillers, according to the lawsuit.
Her father, Lindsay Martin, said he was devastated by the news.
“I hung up the phone, and I was in shock,” he told the Hartford Courant.
The family says they did not know about the hospital’s financial difficulties.
“We didn’t know till after Dale’s death that she was admitted to a bankrupt hospital that was under investigation, where nurses allegedly were buying food for patients, where the level of funding was so constrained that the hospital may not have been able to function properly,” Lindsay said.
He also emphasized that his daughter had no say in which facility she was taken to after fracturing her ankle.
“Dale did not have a choice of where to go,” he said.
“She was brought to the nearest hospital.”
Hospital’s financial troubles come under scrutiny
Waterbury Hospital was previously owned by Prospect Medical Holdings, a California-based health care company that filed for bankruptcy in January 2025.
Earlier in 2026, Hartford HealthCare acquired the financially troubled hospital along with two other facilities.
Mattei suggested that the hospital’s previous ownership and financial struggles could be central to understanding what happened to Dale.
“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 jeopardized care,” he said.
A spokesperson for Waterbury Hospital declined to comment on the case, explaining that Dale’s death occurred before Hartford HealthCare took ownership of the facility.
Meanwhile, former Prospect CEOs David Topper and Von Crockett did not respond to calls and emails from WNBC-TV News seeking comment on the lawsuit.
The family’s allegations have not been established as proven facts in court.
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