Dale Alice Martin Death: 21-Year-Old Dies From Painkiller Overdose at Waterbury Hospital Lawsuit Claims

Dale Alice Martin was a 21 year old New York City native studying English and history at Trinity University in San Antonio when she broke her ankle doing farm work near Bethlehem, Connecticut. She was taken to the nearest hospital, Waterbury Hospital, on April 10, 2025, for what everyone expected to be straightforward care. She never came home.

According to a lawsuit filed by her family, staff gave her so many painkillers that she stopped breathing within 14 hours of admission. No one checked on her during that stretch. The same drugs that slowed her breathing also sedated her so deeply that she couldn’t call for help while she struggled for air. When a nurse finally looked in at 7 a.m. the next morning, her heart had already stopped.

An autopsy later determined she died from cardiac arrest after receiving multiple narcotics for the ankle pain. Her father, Lindsay Martin, who lives in Westchester County, described the call that told him his daughter was gone. “I hung up the phone, and I was in shock,” he said.

The family only learned afterward that Dale had been admitted to a hospital owned by Prospect Medical Holdings, a California company that had filed for bankruptcy months earlier and was under investigation. Reports described nurses buying food for patients and funding so constrained that basic care may have suffered. Dale had no say in where she was taken. She simply went to the closest facility.

Family lawyer Christopher Mattei said the lawsuit expects to show the hospital was running on fumes after Prospect stripped resources, cut staff and training, and pulled value out in ways that left patients at risk. A representative for the hospital’s later owner declined comment because the events happened before the change in ownership. Former Prospect executives did not respond to questions about the case.

Dale had gone to middle and high school in Pelham and was living in Bethlehem at the time. She was a rising senior at Trinity, remembered as a kind person who volunteered as a music teacher for kids who needed extra help. After she was declared brain dead, her parents kept vigil for the required waiting period. She never regained function and was removed from support on April 13. She was an organ donor, and her heart went to a recipient who later wrote that they felt her influence in unexpected ways.

The suit, filed in Waterbury Superior Court, names the hospital, the doctor and nurse who oversaw her care, the Connecticut Spine and Disc Institute, and Prospect Medical Holdings. It alleges her death came from the failure to monitor her after the medications were given.