Arizona family sues hospital, says staff Ubered sick son to sidewalk where he died

An Arizona family is calling for change and demanding answers after a 27-year-old man died hours after he was wrongfully discharged from a hospital and dumped on a sidewalk during a hot summer day, according to a wrongful death lawsuit. Seth and Gayle Lachica, the parents of Kaelen Lachica, allege staffers at Abrazo Health Arrowhead put their son in an Uber and had him dropped off outside a local homeless shelter in Phoenix despite his deteriorating condition. “What they did is abandonment.I mean, they absolutely killed my son,” Seth Lachica told Fox News Digital. Kaelan Lachica suffered from anorexia for nearly a decade but his condition had improved in the year preceding his hospitalization in August 2025, his father said. Lachica was hospitalized at one center before being transferred to Abrazo Health Arrowhead after having a possible stroke and losing weight. Days prior to his discharge, his health declined to the point he was “delusional” and “immobile,” the lawsuit states.

On Aug.13, 2025, Kaelan lashed out and struck a nurse and asked to leave the hospital “against medical advice,” the family’s attorney, Richard Lyons, told Fox News Digital. The lawsuit alleges that Kaelan was put in a wheelchair and into an Uber, which the hospital paid for, and was taken to a homeless shelter in downtown Phoenix.

He couldn’t remember his address, Lyons said.However, Kaelan’s address was on his medical records and was easily accessible to hospital staff prior to his discharge, the complaint states. “I mean they literally got him in a wheelchair and pushed him outside and discharged him,” Lyons said.“And I don’t mean medically discharged, I mean they evicted him from the hospital because they did not want him as a patient anymore.”Kaelen was spotted collapsed on a sidewalk by a police officer, his family said.

Temperatures reportedly reached triple digits that day. “How in the world are you gonna discharge a man who is very ill...