A Native American teenager who died while attending a Utah boarding school for at-risk youth had been sick in the weeks beforehand, but staff had been trained to assume students would lie about being ill and did not try to bring her to the hospital until the day she died, former staff members said in interviews.
Taylor Goodridge, 17, collapsed at Diamond Ranch Academy in Hurricane, Utah, on Dec. 20. While an official cause of death has not yet been determined, her family said in a lawsuit that they believe she died of sepsis, a life-threatening condition that arises from a body’s response to infection.
An attorney for Diamond Ranch said the facility has “substantial disagreement with many aspects” of the lawsuit and allegations by former staff, but could not respond in detail because of federal privacy law governing education and medical records.
The Utah Department of Health and Human Services placed Diamond Ranch Academy’s license on “conditional status,” allowing it to remain open while the agency and the Hurricane Police Department investigate Taylor’s death. The health department said the academy is “actively collaborating with investigators.”
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