Ridgefield Boy's Death Sparks Lawsuit Against Hospitals And Doctors

RIDGEFIELD, CT — The parents of a Ridgefield boy who died in 2021 have filed a lawsuit against hospitals and doctors involved with his care.

Logan Hale, an eighth grader at East Ridge Middle School in Ridgefield, had been diagnosed with leukemia in January 2020. Following treatment at Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York City, the disease went into remission. But on Christmas morning 2021, the child complained of severe abdominal pains, and his mother contacted Dr. Morgan Pines, the on-call physician at Sloan-Kettering for help, according to the lawsuit filed last week in Bridgeport Superior Court.

Pines made a series of treatment recommendations, including that Logan take Tylenol. The doctor specifically advised Krystina Bilko Hale that it was not necessary to return her son to the hospital, according to the complaint.

After their child's condition worsened, his parents arranged for Logan to be taken to Danbury Hospital later that day. There he experienced shortness of breath, rapid and shallow breathing, hypoxia, cyanosis, tachycardia and fever, the lawsuit states. A blood test confirmed pancytopenia and worsening neutropenia, and the child's blood pressure hit 190. Dr. Craig Tenenbaum diagnosed Logan with sepsis, and made arrangements for him to return to Sloan Kettering, according to the lawsuit.

Logan was transported in an ambulance which lacked sufficient life-monitoring or life-saving gear, and suffered cardiac arrest, according to the Hale family's suit. Shortly after their child was taken to nearby Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, N.Y., a CT scan determined he was brain dead.

David and Krystina Hale decided to remove Logan from life support on Dec. 30, four days after his 13th birthday.

The suit, filed in Bridgeport Superior Court by David Hale and his wife Krystina Bilko Hale, alleges negligence and a violation of care by Danbury Hospital and its parent company, Nuvance Health Inc., Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital and doctors Morgan Pine and Craig Tenenbaum. It does not seek any specified damages.

A Nuvance hospital spokesperson could not be reached for comment.