The parents of a 26-year-old dental student named Conor Hylton are suing a Connecticut hospital after their son died in its “telehealth” intensive care unit where no critical care doctors were actually present, they allege in the lawsuit.

According to the wrongful death complaint filed against Yale New Haven Health, the largest healthcare provider in the state, Hylton visited the emergency room at its Bridgeport Hospital Milford Campus because of abdominal pain and vomiting on the morning of August 14, 2024. When his condition worsened, he was admitted to the hospital ICU and diagnosed with pancreatitis, dehydration, metabolic acidosis, and alcohol withdrawal, per a medical analysis cited in the suit.

Rather than receiving traditional care, however, Hylton was unwittingly plunged into a cold experiment in using remote work to offset hospital staffing shortages, which could be a grim portent in an age of AI automation. During the late hours he was admitted to the ICU, there were no on-hand ICU intensivists — the term for doctors that specialize in providing critical care — the suit alleges. Instead, the wing outsourced this to a “tele-ICU” service, which relies on off-site intensivists.

No on-site physician assessed Hylton for hours, despite his rapidly deteriorating condition. A hospitalist — a doctor that provides general medical care for in-patients but doesn’t specialize in critical care — was assigned to Hylton, but allegedly never saw him. 

In the early morning after he was admitted at around 4:30 AM, Hylton became unresponsive. He “slid down in bed, his eyes rolled back and he… exhibited seizure-like activity, vomited, became bradycardic and code was called,” the complaint alleges, as reported by Law & Crime. “He was intubated, but he could not be resuscitated, and he was pronounced dead.”

The pronouncement, according to the suit, was done by a “tele-health” provider on a video screen. 

The family, meanwhile, was never notified about Hylton’s condition, they claim. If they had the chance to have a say, they never would’ve allowed their son to go into a “tele-ICU.”

“It’s a fake ICU,” the family’s attorney Joel Faxon told CT Insider in a recent interview. “It’s not real because no patient would ever consent if they told… they’re not going to have a doctor in here. They’re going to be on the tube.”

In the lawsuit, the parents argue the ICU “violated hospital policy because no on-site doctor assessed Mr. Hylton from the time he was admitted to the ICU until after he exhibited seizure-like activity.” The ICU never provided bed-side monitoring, nor assessments for his pain levels and other basic medical measures that could’ve been taken by a doctor. It in particular points to an alleged failure to protect Hylton’s airways as he was being administered powerful sedatives, CT Insider noted, which may have contributed to his death. 

The lawsuit follows an investigation from the Connecticut Department of Public Health that concluded that the hospital failed to ensure quality medical care was provided” to Hylton, Law & Crime noted.

More on: America’s Largest Hospital System Ready to Start Replacing Radiologists With AI, Its CEO Says