{"id":425766,"date":"2026-01-23T21:34:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/425766\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T21:34:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T21:34:07","slug":"family-of-2-year-old-who-died-of-the-flu-threatens-to-sue-n-j-hospital-that-sent-him-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/425766\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of 2-year-old who died of the flu threatens to sue N.J. hospital that sent him home"},"content":{"rendered":"

A New Jersey family is threatening to sue Morristown Medical Center for $25 million after their 2-year-old son was discharged and died from complications of the flu<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Isais Castillo IV, who died Jan. 6, wasn\u2019t vaccinated for the flu. He was scheduled to get a shot later this month, his family said. <\/p>\n

His mom told ABC7 <\/a>that he had a fever and they took him to the emergency room, but he died one day after being sent home.<\/p>\n

Morristown Medical Center staff allegedly \u201cdeviated from accepted standards of care\u201d when they discharged Isais on Jan. 5, causing his death the next day, according to a notice of tort claim filed against the hospital. <\/p>\n

The legal notice claims $25 million in damages, which include \u201cemotional distress, suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, extraordinary medical expenses, economic damages and loss of child\u2019s services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Darryl L. Zaslow, the family\u2019s attorney, told NJ Advance Media on Friday that \u201cthe tragedy here is unimaginable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be doing a thorough investigation upon receiving the medical records and then I\u2019ll determine if a lawsuit will be filed,\u201d said Zaslow. <\/p>\n

Spokespeople for Atlantic Health, which owns Morristown Medical Center and is also named in the legal notice, did not immediately respond Friday to requests for comment. <\/p>\n

Giselle Castillo described her son\u2019s death as \u201cthe biggest loss of our lives,\u201d in a public Facebook post.<\/p>\n

A GoFundMe campaign<\/a> created to support the family has raised more than $18,000 as of Friday. <\/p>\n

Isais was the first pediatric flu death in New Jersey<\/a> this season. <\/p>\n

There have been 104 total flu-related deaths in New Jersey since the fall, most of which were people 65 and older, according to state data.<\/p>\n

However, the flu can cause severe illness and death in anyone, including children. Last year, the state reported five pediatric flu deaths.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A New Jersey family is threatening to sue Morristown Medical Center for $25 million after their 2-year-old son…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-425766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}