Boarding School Accused of Ignoring Sick Teens’ Pleas Until Day She Died
‘SUCK IT UP’
A 17-year-old Native American girl’s pleas for medical care were allegedly denied for weeks by her boarding school until she eventually collapsed and died on Dec. 20, NBC News reported, citing school staff members. Those in charge at Diamond Ranch Academy in Hurricane, Utah, allegedly told Taylor Goodridge to “suck it up” and take an aspirin, as they assumed her repeated reports of throwing up and feeling ill were a bit to receive attention or miss class. Instead, her family alleges in a lawsuit, Goodridge was suffering from sepsis, a life-threatening condition that arises from a body’s response to infection. NBC’s report says Diamond Ranch Academy, a school for at-risk youth, limits who students can speak to outside the academy while attending, so she wouldn’t have been able to alert family to her deteriorating condition without permission. Staff members reportedly said only a school medical worker could authorize a trip to the hospital for Goodridge, but that’d mean a staff member would have to leave campus—something that’d apparently put the school in violation with state-mandated ratios of adults to children, so it was a last-resort. In a statement, the academy called Goodridge’s death a tragedy but denied any wrongdoing in the weeks leading up to her death.