PHOENIX — An Arizona family is demanding answers after a 27-year-old man died on a Phoenix sidewalk hours after being discharged from a hospital in Glendale.
The parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Abrazo Health Arrowhead, alleging the hospital put their son in an Uber and had him dropped off outside a local homeless shelter in Phoenix.
Seth Lachica described what happened to his son Kaelen as "unbelievable" and "a flagrant disregard for his well-being."
Kaelen had suffered from anorexia for nearly a decade — his father said he got it when he was 17, “it’s a very misunderstood, sad disease.”
He lived about three miles from his parents in Gold Canyon.
Lachica said his son was working to get better, but last August, he was hospitalized.
His family tells ABC15 that Kaelen was transferred to Abrazo Health Arrowhead after suffering a possible stroke.
The lawsuit alleges that days prior to Kaelen’s discharge, his health was declining, including not being able to recognize his father.
The family’s attorney, Richard Lyons, said on August 13, 2025, Kaelen lashed out, struck a nurse, and asked to leave the hospital.
The lawsuit goes on to allege that the hospital staff transferred Kaelen from a wheelchair and into an Uber, which the hospital paid for, “at the direction of the Abrazo staff, Kaelen—delusional, immobile, and incapacitated--was unceremoniously dumped on a sidewalk in downtown Phoenix by the Uber driver and left to fend for himself.”
"They paid for an Uber not to his home, which was on [..] file in the medical records, but they paid for an Uber to an address that was outside of a homeless shelter or at the homeless shelter, which you couldn't get into," Seth Lachica said.
About two hours later, body camera video captured a Buckeye police officer spotting Kaelen collapsed on the sidewalk while driving through downtown Phoenix.
Temperatures that day reached triple digits.
His father arrived after circling the area looking for him.
"I told them not to release him. They f***ing 'Ubered' him here,” Lachica told the officers on scene. “They 'Ubered' him here this morning and just f***ing dropped him off to die.”
Kaelen was rushed to another hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The lawsuit alleges the hospital's decision to discharge their very sick patient and have him dropped off on a sidewalk directly caused his death.
"He wanted to be healthy," Seth Lachica said. "And we were hopeful. We were always hopeful. And now they've taken that hope away from us. They've taken the hope that maybe he would get better away from us. And it's so sad that he had to die alone on the street."
A spokesperson for Abrazo Health said the hospital has no comment at this time.
