Popular playground game caused teachers to ignore 5-year-old in severe medical distress until 'it was too late': Lawsuit

A young Connecticut boy died after collapsing at school, but teachers did not come to his aid for almost 10 minutes because they thought he was just playing a game, a new lawsuit claims.

On April 5, 2022, 5-year-old Romeo Pierre Louis was running around with friends during recess at Charter Oak International Academy in West Hartford, Connecticut, when he suddenly fell to the ground and didn't move. Though several adults were standing nearby, many of them believed he was just playing a game called "play dead," which had become popular at the school, and they made no immediate move to help him.

After nine minutes and several complaints from worried students, the adults finally began attending to Romeo. He was carried inside to a school nurse, who began life-saving measures, including administering an AED and performing CPR. Within a half-hour, Romeo was at Connecticut Children's Hospital, where he temporarily regained a pulse and began attempting to breathe on his own.

Unfortunately, Romeo's condition then declined steeply, and two days later, just a few weeks before his sixth birthday, he died. An autopsy determined that he had died of cardiac channelopathy, brugada syndrome, a heart condition which can cause sudden death. His death is considered "natural."

Exactly one year after Romeo's death, his parents, Chantel and D’Meza Shultz Pierre Louis, held a memorial for Romeo, where they announced that they had filed a lawsuit against the town of West Hartford and its board of education for neglecting their son.

"By the time the teachers ... realized that Romeo was not playing dead and needed emergency medical treatment — it was too late, and Romeo's life could no longer be saved," the lawsuit stated, adding that if "Romeo would have received the necessary medical attention he needed," he "would have survived."

The lawsuit is seeking more than $15,000 in damages. "We know that nothing will bring our son back," Chantel Pierre Louis told the crowd at her son's memorial. "All we can do is keep his memory in our hearts and do what we can so this doesn’t happen to another child."

During the memorial, D'Meza Shultz Pierre Louis, Romeo's father, shared that his son had a deep love for God and led attendees in a recitation of the Lord's Prayer, which he said was one of Romeo's favorites.

Andrew Morrow, the interim superintendent of West Hartford Public Schools, declined to comment on the lawsuit but did express his condolences to Romeo's family and friends.

"This tragedy has deeply affected the Charter Oak International Academy community," Morrow said in a statement, "and the school district continues to make grief support and emotional assistance available to any student or educator who needs it."

Dallas Dodge, who is representing the town of West Hartford, similarly expressed his condolences but declined to comment on the lawsuit "[o]ut of respect for the legal process."

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