Yale Settles With Family Of Man Who, Revived After OD, Died In Hallway

NEW HAVEN, CT —In 2022, Tina Darnsteadt filed a medical malpractice lawsuit against Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale University, saying it was the emergency room staff's negligence that caused her son's death in May 2021.

The case against the hospital claimed William "Billy" Miller, 23, never received treatment for the entirety of the near seven hours he was in the emergency room hallway; no staff checked on him until just before 2 a.m. when he was found brain-dead.

This week it was reported that Yale New Haven Hospital settled the lawsuit. Technically called a withdrawal of action on April 1, per court records. It's reported the terms of the settlement are confidential.

The hospital and the family declined to comment.

From Patch's investigative story in 2022:

A 911 call led 1st responders to woods where they found Billy Miller

It was a May 2021 early evening when the 911 call about an overdose came in, first to North Haven public safety, then passed along to East Haven public safety.

In an audio recording of the call Patch obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, a crying, hysterical woman can be heard trying to tell a public safety dispatcher where East Haven firefighters need to come. Out of respect for the family, Patch will describe what's heard in the 911 call.

The woman and William "Billy" Miller, 23, were in Peter’s Rock Association Park woods behind Ferrara School in East Haven. The park is mostly in North Haven.

Miller was not breathing, she tells the dispatcher. He'd taken what she, and he, thought was heroin; she told the dispatcher. It was instead fentanyl, it turned out.

East Haven fire department paramedics were able to find them in the rocky woods, with Miller now "barely breathing" and administered naloxone, also known as Narcan.

Miller was revived.

In police body worn camera footage, also obtained by Patch through FOIA, once Miller is conscious and alert, police and firefighter paramedics walk him down a craggy hill to a waiting East Haven ambulance. In the video, Miller can be seen walking, albeit unsteadily, and is heard talking, and answering questions.

But later, after laying on a stretcher in a hospital hallway for seven hours without medical care, he would be found not breathing and brain-dead, according to court documents.

According to a medical malpractice lawsuit filed by Miller's mother Tina Darnsteadt against Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale University, it was the emergency room staff's negligence that caused his death. Darnsteadt's suit claims that her son never received any treatment for the entirety of the near seven hours he was in the emergency room hallway. And that no staff checked on him until just before 2 a.m. when he was found brain-dead, the suit claims.

In a phone interview with Darnsteadt, she said that based on a statement the hospital gave to local media, "They know there was wrongdoing. They know there was negligence."

A Yale New Haven Hospital spokesperson did not respond to a Patch request for information and comment.

Seven Hours

The following describes what happened from the time Miller arrived to the hospital at around 7 p.m., until, at 2 a.m., a nurse found him, according to Darnsteadt and the lawsuit.

East Haven paramedics brought Miller to the Yale emergency room and there, ER staff triaged him, designated him as a patient with a life-threatening condition in need of immediate care. But, as the suit reads, he was left alone and "ignored" for seven hours. At 1:56 a.m., when he was "finally discovered, he wasn’t breathing and his heart had stopped, according to the lawsuit. His pupils were fixed and dilated. He was brain-dead," according to the lawsuit.

In hospital surveillance video obtained by Darnsteadt's attorney, Sean McElligott, Miller can be seen on a phone shortly after he arrived. His mother said that he called her from the ambulance, and texted her from the hospital. But within an hour of his arrival, his cellphone was taken from him as part of a security check, she said.

As the hospital was not allowing visitors due to coronavirus rules, she and his sister, a now-former Smilow Cancer Hospital/YNHH oncology nurse, called a number of times over hours to check on him. Each time they were told he was OK, so feeling he was safe, eventually they'd go to sleep, she said.

"We just didn't know that he wasn't safe. Had we had known anything ..." Darnsteadt trails off. "We just didn't know."

In the hours he lay on a stretcher in the area where ambulances arrive, video shows at one point, he gets up to use the bathroom, the complaint notes. Much later on, the security video shows, he fell asleep. Emergency room staffers can be seen walking by him over the night, but no one stops to check on him, it's noted, until 1:56 a.m, according to the lawsuit.

Then it was too late.

The Superior Court complaint reads that he'd been in "full cardiac arrest, but for how long, it's unknown. Radiology tests would show "severe anoxic brain injury secondary to prolonged lack of oxygen from cardiopulmonary arrest," the court record reads.

"The ER has policies and procedures. They did not follow them," Darnsteadt said, "and my son died."

Tina Darnsteadt/Estate of W... by Ellyn Santiago

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When grief transforms into action & advocacy

Miller's mother, Tina, told Patch that as news outlets began covering the lawsuit, a deep grief was awakened.

"Our world fell apart when we lost him. It was absolutely devastating," she said. "Now, from Monday to last night, I haven't been able to sleep. The wounds weren't fully healed and now are spread wide open again."

What she, her daughter nurse Rebecca Miller and other family have done is thrown themselves into advocacy, she said. They're part of a Facebook group called the 'Fentanyl Awareness Coalition.'

They are working to "change the stigma," and call attention to the deadly dangers of fentanyl. The often lethal opioid is used to lace any number of drugs, be they in powder or in pill form.

"This is happening every day. Everywhere. And in first-time users. It's killing them. An anxious teenager who thought what he was getting was a Xanax, it was actually fentanyl, and it killed him. This happens every day. It's a crisis that we need to face."

The family created a website, billymiller.org that features a video that tells the story of what happened. Their initiatives include raising medical awareness, advocating for fentanyl test strips, and working for legislative action to help combat the fentanyl crisis.

"Our mission is to prevent deaths from accidental fentanyl ingestion; to open the discussion on drug toxicity care standards in the hospital setting, equip the community with education and tools to be an advocate; demand legislative action to require mandatory hospital reporting of fentanyl-related deaths that occur after an initial dose of Narcan."

And they're offering advice for families.

"My family wants to bring awareness to the importance of staying vigilant for loved ones brought to ER," she said. "Especially if COVID-19 policy restricts you from being at their side."

"Confirm they have been triaged. Find out the acuity level given at triage. Confirm a nurse has been assigned. When calling to check up, have your loved one put on the phone if they are able to talk."

She also has advice about preventing an overdose death.

Whether someone has ingested fentanyl "unknowingly or knowingly" and overdoses, Narcan is life-saving, she said, adding "Every home should have it."

And, as is what she believes happened to her son, even if Narcan is administered, the person needs to be "monitored for fentanyl toxicity recurrence."

The medicine is meant to save a life, but doesn't prevent fentanyl from "taking over the body again."

The promise of a future for her son is what hurts Tina Darnsteadt most.

"He had endless possibilities," she said. He hoped to succeed as a rapper, for example. She shares his songs on her Facebook page.

What she wants now is to raise awareness and, importantly, "Get justice for my son."

"And I want to thank the East Haven first responders that attended to Billy. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their quick response and for showing respect, care and decency to my son."

Miller's father, Ronnie Miller, said his grief is omnipresent.

"There has been a huge part of my soul torn away," he said. "I struggle with the void it's created. Every day."