A Utah teen died while attending boarding school because school officials thought she was “faking” her illness for weeks. However, the seventeen-year-old girl was actually very sick and later died “from sepsis” because the school refused to treat her symptoms, which included severe stomach pain. The victim, Taylor Goodridge, passed away just days before Christmas on December 20, 2022, after she collapsed to the ground inside the Diamond Ranch Academy in Hurricane, Utah, from what her family believes was an illness that could have been treated if her complaints were taken seriously.
The family was informed of Taylor’s death on Saturday morning, and they later said that they are now seeking justice for their daughter’s death. They believe that the school should have treated her symptoms more seriously and not ignored them.
“They allowed a child to suffer needlessly for nearly two weeks when she could have been saved,” Taylor’s father, Dean Goodridge, said.
The family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Diamond Ranch Academy for their negligence in handling the situation. The lawsuit claims that the school did not take reasonable measures to prevent Taylor’s death despite her “long-term suffering from stomach pain and other symptoms.”
The school’s staff has yet to comment on the situation, but they have said that they are deeply saddened by Taylor’s death and express their condolences to her family.
The Goodridge family plans to continue fighting for justice for Taylor and hopes that no other family will ever have to go through a tragedy like this.
Only a few days after his daughter died at the Utah boarding school, Dean Goodridge filed a lawsuit against the academy. As a result of the teen’s untimely death, the school has been put on probation by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services.
While his daughter was dying, staff at the school told her to “suck it up” and work through the pain. They thought she was faking her pain for some reason, so they told her to take aspirin and drink lots of water. However, the teen collapsed in her own vomit one day and had a distended stomach as a result of the undiagnosed infection.
She eventually died from sepsis.
The Goodridge family has set up a memorial foundation in the name of their daughter to provide support for other families who have experienced similar tragedies and are seeking justice. They hope that something positive will come out of this tragedy and that Taylor’s death can help prevent future cases of wrongful death due to the infection. However, her official cause of death has not yet been announced.
Taylor collapsed for the final time on December 20, 2022. When medics arrived at the scene, she could not be brought back from death and was pronounced dead.
Lawyer Alan Mortensen filed the lawsuit on behalf of the victim’s father.
“Here is that this young teenager is sent down to Utah from the state of Washington to try and help her get her life back in order,” said Mortensen. “And before they know it, she’s died from what we believe will ultimately prove out to be sepsis. And with no explanation.”