A 21-year-old Manhattan native went to a Connecticut hospital for treatment of a broken ankle. She never left alive, according to a wrongful-death lawsuit alleging that an excessive amount of pain medication caused her death.
The family of Dale Alice Martin claims Waterbury Hospital seriously mishandled the college student’s care on April 10, 2025. Martin had fractured her ankle while doing farm work and was allegedly given a fatal combination of drugs that left her brain-dead, the Hartford Courant reported.
Martin’s father, Westchester County resident Lindsay Martin, told the outlet that the family did not learn about the hospital’s financial and operational problems until after her death.
Dale, who lived in Bethlehem, Connecticut, attended middle and high school in Pelham, New York, and studied English and history at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, according to the Pelham Examiner.
“Dale did not have a choice of where to go,” her father said. “She was brought to the nearest hospital.”
An autopsy concluded that Martin died of cardiac arrest after receiving multiple painkillers, according to the lawsuit filed by the family’s attorney, Christopher Mattei.
“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. “No one checked on Dale during this time.”
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The suit alleges that the medications suppressing Martin’s breathing also left her deeply sedated and unable to call for assistance. A Waterbury Hospital nurse reportedly found her at 7 a.m. on April 10, but by then, according to the complaint, her heart had stopped.
Lindsay Martin said he still remembers the devastating call from the hospital informing him that his daughter had died.
“I hung up the phone, and I was in shock,” he said.
The family said it had been unaware of the hospital’s troubles. Waterbury Hospital was previously owned by California-based Prospect Medical Holdings, which filed for bankruptcy in January 2025.
Earlier this year, Hartford HealthCare acquired the financially troubled hospital along with two other facilities.
“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 hospital representative declined to comment, saying Martin’s death occurred before Hartford HealthCare assumed ownership of the facility.
Former Prospect CEOs David Topper and Von Crockett did not respond to calls or emails from WNBC-TV News seeking comment on the lawsuit.