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Jury Hears Conflicting Testimony in Trial Alleging Hospital’s Actions — Not COVID — Caused Teen’s Death

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 6, 2025

The parents of Grace Schara, a 19-year-old with Down syndrome who died in a Wisconsin hospital days after being admitted for a COVID-19 infection, testified this week in court that their daughter died as a result of a lethal combination of drugs and a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order the hospital implemented without their consent.

Grace’s family sued Ascension St. Elizabeth Hospital in April 2023 and filed an amended complaint in July 2023, alleging the hospital’s COVID-19 treatment protocols directly resulted in Grace’s death in October 2021, a week after admission.

The trial began Tuesday at the State of Wisconsin Circuit Court for Outagamie County.

“This isn’t about failing to provide information. This is about providing treatment with no consent whatsoever,” Scott Schara, Grace’s father, testified on Wednesday. “Her passing was a result of combining Precedex, lorazepam and morphine in a 26-minute window and putting an illegal do-not-resuscitate order on her chart.”

The lawsuit names 14 defendants, including Ascension Health, five medical doctors and four John Doe medical providers, two registered nurses, and the Wisconsin Injured Patients and Family Compensation Fund.

The defendants argued that Schara may have died due to “a naturally progressing disease, a pre-existing condition, or a superseding or intervening cause,” Green Bay-based CBS affiliate WFRV reported.

According to the Journal Sentinel, the hospital also argued that the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) provided it and its doctors and staff immunity from liability during the COVID-19 pandemic.

At times during the first three days of the trial, hospital doctors and nurses who testified appeared to contradict themselves over whether Grace had been oversedated and whether her family consented to a DNR order.

Green Bay, Wisconsin-based ABC affiliate WBAY reported, “This is the first wrongful death jury trial in the country for a death listed as COVID-19 on the death certificate.” WFRV reported that “this landmark case could have far-reaching implications for how medical decisions are made, especially during a public health crisis.”

The trial could last up to three weeks. Up to 22 witnesses may testify, WFRV reported, adding that the case may draw attention “to critical issues surrounding informed consent and the rights of patients and their families in the healthcare system.”

Scharas allege lack of informed consent, violation of standards of care

During opening statements Tuesday, Warner Mendenhall, the Schara family’s attorney, said the hospital violated standards of care in their treatment of Grace.

“Instead of recognizing the life-threatening situation and reducing the medications causing the problems, this medical team did the opposite,” Mendenhall said.

Jason Franckowiak and Randall Guse, attorneys for the defendants, said hospital staff provided an appropriate standard of care, which did not lead to Grace’s death. Instead, they argued that a worsening COVID-19 infection led to her death.

Her parents testified that they became concerned after their daughter displayed allergy symptoms in late September 2021, days after the family attended a concert, and that they took her for treatment as a precautionary measure.

“We were just hoping that we would just get some supplemental oxygen,” Cindy Schara, Grace’s mother, testified Tuesday.

Scott Schara told the court that Grace “was not having any trouble breathing,” and that “it wasn’t an emergency, so there was no need to have Grace in the hospital.”

But the hospital told the family they were keeping Grace overnight “for observation” and that they would put her on a steroid “for two to three days,” after which she would be discharged. “But that’s not what happened,” Cindy Schara testified.

Instead, hospital staff gave Grace Precedex, lorazepam and morphine. Mendenhall said that Precedex “dangerously lowered” Grace’s blood pressure and pulse, and that her condition improved after its dosage was lowered.

According to Scott Schara, after Grace’s first oversedation event, Dr. Gavin Shokar, a defendant who was the primary physician in charge of Grace’s care, gave an order to stop administering Precedex, but nursing staff waited 22 minutes to do so.

Shokar testified Thursday that he was uncertain whether his order was immediately implemented. Hospital staff also provided contradictory testimony in response to the Scharas’ claims that Grace had been oversedated with these medications.

Shokar testified that he “was aware” that Grace had been oversedated at least once. Samuel Haines, a nurse at the hospital, said Grace had been oversedated “only for a brief period.”

However, Hollee McInnis, another defendant, said Grace was “not oversedated.”

A witness for the Schara family, Dr. Gilbert Berdine, an associate professor of medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, said Grace was oversedated three times during her hospital stay.

According to Grace’s parents, the family did not consent to the medications and did not find out they were administered until later.

“If they would’ve asked me for consent with those, of course, I would’ve asked a lot of questions,” Scott Schara testified. He said the hospital also didn’t tell him that they reclassified Grace’s hospital room as an ICU room.

McInnis testified that she “personally did not witness” hospital doctors obtaining consent to administer the drugs in question.

Grace’s father removed from hospital after ‘pushing to get her fed’

During his testimony, Scott Schara also recounted a “heated conversation” he had with hospital staff who rejected his request to feed Grace because she was on a BiPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure) machine — a type of non-invasive ventilation.

The confrontation led the hospital to order Scott removed from the hospital, and send an armed guard to Grace’s room to escort him out.

“That’s one of the reasons I was kicked out. I was pushing to get her fed,” Scott Schara testified. “That was the last time I saw Grace alive physically.”

Hospital staff testified that Scott Schara was removed because some nurses did not want him in the room, because he was shutting off alarms from Grace’s medical equipment at night. Staff said they also suspected he had COVID-19.

But Mendenhall said Scott’s questioning of medical staff was “exactly what he was supposed to do as a dad and power of attorney for healthcare.”

According to the Scharas’ legal team, Shokar could have overruled the order to eject Scott from the hospital. But Shokar testified that his “primary responsibility was to Grace” and that “these things are non-pertinent to her particular care.”

In subsequent days, Grace’s family was able to communicate with her solely through FaceTime calls — until the hospital took Grace’s phone away.

“Cindy and I had no opportunity to communicate with Grace unless it was initiated by the hospital,” Scott Schara testified.

Hospital repeatedly pressured family to ‘pre-authorize’ a ventilator for Grace

The Scharas also testified that hospital staff repeatedly pressured them to “pre-authorize” a ventilator for Grace, even though, according to Mendenhall, “there was no need for a ventilator.”

Cindy Schara testified that she received several calls from the hospital “asking us for a pre-authorization to put Grace on a vent if something would’ve happened in the middle of the night — that is how it was always presented.”

“There was family there, so there was no need for a pre-authorization,” she added.

Scott Schara testified that Dr. Karl Baum, one of the defendants in the case, told him that “a 20% chance” of saving Grace’s life was “better than no chance” in his efforts to convince the family to pre-approve a ventilator.

“Asking for Grace to be with a pre-authorization for a ventilator at that point was the equivalent of asking somebody for a pre-authorization for a leg amputation when they just have a sprained ankle,” Scott Schara testified.

Grace’s father also testified that Shokar acknowledged during a phone call that placing Grace on a ventilator would not have saved her life.

Shokar also had separate phone calls with Grace’s parents, purportedly to make amends after Scott was removed from the hospital. But the parents testified that the conversation transitioned to renewed efforts to get them to pre-authorize a ventilator for Grace, which they again rejected.

‘We watched her die’

Grace’s parents also testified that they repeatedly told hospital staff that they did not consent to a DNR order.

Hospital staff provided contradictory testimony as to whether Grace’s family provided consent. According to Shokar, Grace’s family ultimately agreed to a DNI — a “Do Not Intubate” order.

“We started to talk about goals of care, what you guys want to do in the worst case scenario, which would be if she were to crash, essentially cardiopulmonary arrest,” Shokar testified Thursday. “I was very confident that we came to a resolution to say, ‘This is what we want to do and this is what the family wants.’”

But according to Mendenhall, Grace’s family later learned that Shokar documented that Grace had both a DNI and DNR order, adding that they did not find out about the DNR until hours before her death. The hospital did not honor their subsequent request to remove the DNR from Grace’s chart.

Cindy Shara said they would not have agreed to a DNR order on their own, without the participation of Grace’s primary care physician, an attorney, their pastor and other family members. “It would be a terrible thing to have to decide,” she testified.

As a result of the DNR, hospital staff did not intervene during Grace’s final moments of life, Grace’s parents said. “We watched her die,” Scott Schara testified.

During her testimony, McInnis acknowledged that she was responsible for placing a wristband on Grace’s arm that would have indicated her DNR status, but could not recall whether she had placed such a wristband on Grace. “If she didn’t have one on, it would be because I had not put it on,” McInnis testified.

“I believe that denying Grace any assistance to help her in her final moments was just horrific,” Cindy Schara testified.

CHD.TV is livestreaming the trial daily.

The family’s lawsuit alleges medical negligence, violations of informed consent, and medical battery — a standard of intentional harm beyond medical negligence by doctors and other providers that, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, is rarely invoked in such legal cases.

According to the complaint, the hospital was financially incentivized to implement COVID-19 protocols that allegedly caused Grace’s death.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

June 8, 2025 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | Covid-19, Human rights, United States | Leave a comment