Child in wheelchair spends school day with broken legs when no one helps, lawsuit says

No one at a 12-year-old boy’s school noticed him lose control of his wheelchair and crash into a concrete wall, breaking both of his legs, while going down a ramp, according to a new federal lawsuit.

The child, who has “significant” intellectual disabilities, orthopedic impairments and speech and language impairments, spent the next seven hours in “severe” pain at Rocky Mountain Elementary School in Longmont, Colorado on May 10, 2022, the lawsuit filed March 18 by his mother says.

School employees saw him “on the verge of tears throughout the day,” according to the school’s internal report, but his mother was never notified, according to a complaint.

The boy’s teacher and other staff members are accused of not helping him or trying to see what was wrong, according to a complaint.

“Instead, he was left confined to his wheelchair with fractured legs,” the complaint says.

While the boy could independently use a walker, wheelchair or mobility tricycle, as stated in his Individualized Education Program (IEP), he was supposed to be supervised and needed help when going up and down ramps, as this proved “very challenging,” according to the complaint.

When Patricia Portillo Estrada picked up her son from the bus stop after school ended, she realized he was in pain, the complaint says.

Estrada took a photo of him and sent it to the school in a text message, writing in Spanish that he was crying and told her he fell, the complaint says.

Estrada and her son mostly speak Spanish, according to the complaint. She often communicates with the district with the help of interpreters, advocates and Google translate.

The school is accused of not immediately responding to Estrada’s text. When she received a response, the school suggested her son was injured from falling out of bed and suggested she take him to a doctor, the complaint says.

“The school’s conduct on, before, and after May 10, 2022 is emblematic of a pattern or practice of neglect and failure to accommodate the (boy’s) needs as a disabled individual,” the complaint says.

Estrada is suing her son’s school district, Adams 12 Five Star Schools, on a few causes of action, including for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act.

District Superintendent Chris Gdowski didn’t respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on March 18.

The school told Colorado Public Radio that “if we are served with a complaint, the district’s practice is not to share information on pending or ongoing litigation.”

Igor Raykin, Estrada’s attorney who has represented children with disabilities for 12 years and previously worked as a teacher for 10 years, told McClatchy News that her son’s school “failed in its duties” to protect the boy.

Bedridden for a month

After the boy went down the ramp, unsupervised, and hit the wall on May 11, one school employee found him but left him to “collect himself” and go back to class, the complaint says. The ramp was between classrooms.

Estrada kept him home for a day and, while “still unaware of the extent of (his) injuries,” sent him back to school on May 12, 2022, according to the complaint.

Sometime afterward, the school advised she needed to come get him because he was in pain, the complaint says.

Estrada took him to the emergency room before he was transferred to a children’s hospital in Aurora that day, the complaint says.

She learned her son had bilateral fractures in his legs, according to the complaint, which says he spent more than one month bedridden, including a week in a hospital bed.

For nearly a month, the school “denied any wrongdoing and the fact that any injury to (Estrada’s son) occurred while at RME under staff supervision” until June 1, the complaint says.

That day, Estrada and an interpreter met with the elementary school’s principal to watch security camera footage from the morning of May 10, according to the complaint.

The boy was seen alone in his wheelchair, rolling down the ramp at a high speed after he lost control and hit the wall, the complaint says.

His “knees absorbed the impact,” the complaint says.

“It is outrageous that the school acted with such deliberate indifference to a severely disabled special needs child that the result was catastrophic injuries that will affect him physically and mentally for the rest of his life,” Raykin told McClatchy News.

The boy “suffered and continues to suffer severe and grievous physical, mental, and emotional suffering, humiliation, stigma, and other injuries he will continue to suffer,” the complaint says.

Estrada’s lawsuit also accuses the school district of violating Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act.

She seeks an unspecified amount of damages.

“We hope that several things come from this suit,” Raykin said.

“One, we hope that schools will take their duties more seriously in terms of servicing and protecting these vulnerable kids who need so much help. Two, we hope this leads schools to reevaluate how they look at children like this in general…Finally, this child and his family will be dealing with the after effects of this injury for the rest of their lives, and it’s only just and fair that the school district assist with some of the costs of that,” Raykin said.

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