DAYTON — The estate of Takoda Collins has sued Dayton Children’s Hospital after they said a social worker at the hospital failed to “assure the safety” of Collins during an emergency room visit a year before his death last December.
The lawsuit filed last month accuses the social worker of not contacting Montgomery County Children Services despite “Takoda reported being scared at home, that he suffered from multiple abrasions on his body...and that Children Services had previously had a case for him.”
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“While we cannot comment on specifics of pending litigation, we grieve the loss of Takoda Collins and our deepest sympathies are with the family,” Dayton Children’s said in a statement Tuesday.
The court action is the second civil case filed by the estate since Collins died in December 2019.
In October, the estate sued Montgomery County and several county employees stating Collins’ death was a “catastrophic failure.”
RELATED: Takoda Collins’ estate sues county, says his death was a ‘catastrophic failure’
His father and two others have been charged in connection to his death.
The emergency room visit cited in the lawsuit against Dayton Children’s found that Collins had abrasions and a traumatic left foot injury during the November 2018 visit, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges a woman at the hospital was “incorrectly identified as the mother of the patient” and she said “she believed Takoda was sleepwalking and had gone upstairs and jumped out of a second story bedroom window.”
“(The social worker) was aware or should have been aware that Takoda had told physicians he was trying to get out of the house because he was scared,” lawyers for the estate wrote in a complaint.
The injuries discussed in the lawsuit also had been red flags for Takoda Collins’ mother Robin, who had expressed concern to law enforcement about potential child abuse.
“(His father) had told me a lot of concerning things. That Takoda had jumped out a window. Trying to make it seem like he had mental problems, but I knew in the back of my mind that something else was going on. Like he jumped out of a window to get away from you,” Robin Collins told News Center 7′s John Bedell. “Like there’s other things going on. Like that’s why I called the 911.”
The lawsuit allegations are the latest to bring agencies into the spotlight for potentially missing opportunities to save Takoda Collins within the system responsible for protecting children in danger.
News Center 7 has widely reported there were numerous red flags reported before Takoda Collins’ death.
>> RELATED: I-Team: Lack of communication may have led to system failure in Takoda Collins’ death