The family of a teenager who died from injuries sustained in a snowboarding accident has sued Boise doctors, an emergency transport company, St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center and Bogus Basin Mountain Recreation Area over claims that negligent emergency response and medical treatment caused the boy’s death.
The parents of 16-year-old Leo Gonzalez filed the civil lawsuit in Ada County on Wednesday. According to the suit, the Centennial High School sophomore injured his collarbone and shoulder while snowboarding, then spent time at Bogus Basin’s mountain clinic and later at St. Luke’s in Boise as his condition worsened. He eventually was transferred to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center, where his family took him off life support after he had no brain activity.
Court documents argue that the ER physician and on-call cardiothoracic surgeon at St. Luke’s failed to stabilize Leo before he was transported. He had massive internal bleeding caused by a punctured subclavian artery that was perforated by his fractured collarbone, the lawsuit said…