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Hillsborough district denies fault in death of Seminole Heights first-grader

 
Keith Coty, 6, suffered a cerebral hemorrhage Jan. 16, 2014, and died the next day in a hospital.
Keith Coty, 6, suffered a cerebral hemorrhage Jan. 16, 2014, and died the next day in a hospital.
Published March 3, 2015

TAMPA — Hillsborough County school officials admit Keith Logan Coty was 6 years old, that he became ill while at Seminole Heights Elementary School on Jan. 16, 2014, and that he died the next day in a hospital.

But attorneys for the district deny most of what Keith's parents allege in a lawsuit, especially that the district failed to train staff and, through a delay in calling 911, contributed to the child's death.

Keith's parents, Kaycee Teets and Franklin James Coty, sued the district in U.S. District Court exactly a year after he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage shortly after lunch that January day.

Represented by the Maher Law Firm, which also sued in 2012 when 7-year-old Isabella Herrera died after suffering a medical emergency on a school bus, Teets and Coty are seeking to prove the district is indifferent toward students' safety and discourages staff from calling 911.

The issue of 911 calls was discussed heatedly after Isabella's death, and district officials made it clear that employees can place the calls. But administrators sometimes advise staff to let the front office make the calls, as phone service is not always reliable in the classrooms and office staff can more quickly direct emergency workers to the student's location.

The suit over Keith's death alleges Seminole Heights principal Jackie Masters "strongly reprimanded" the employee who called 911, saying they must ask her permission first. The district denies this.

The district also denies that despite seeing that Keith was unresponsive, the nurse failed to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation. District lawyers deny office staff did not describe Keith's situation clearly when they spoke with a 911 operator.

The district lawyers took issue with comparisons the Maher lawyers made with the cases of Isabella Herrera and Jennifer Caballero, a special-needs student who also died 2012.

In the Herrera case, "there is no basis on which the Plaintiff may allege that any lack of an effort to resuscitate her was responsible for her death," they wrote. As for Jennifer, district officials say she wandered off and drowned in a pond because staff did not supervise her properly. Once school administrators realized she was missing, they called 911 immediately and initiated a search.

Contact Marlene Sokol at(813) 226-3356 or msokol@tampabay.com. Follow @marlenesokol.