Family of woman who collapsed in Boston nightclub say staff failed to help, control crowd
The family of a woman who died after collapsing at a Boston nightclub last month said Tuesday that the club's staff did not do enough to help her.
Anastaiya Colon's sister and friend told the Boston Licensing Board during a hearing Tuesday morning that when Colon collapsed at Icon Nightclub from a medical incident, they tried to get help from the security staff and the DJ.
But despite their pleas for help, they said, the music came back on, security failed to keep the crowd back and they had to flag down police officers patrolling outside.
"Nobody in that establishment helped me," said Angelica Morales, Colon's sister.
Connie Guerriero, an attorney with Kahalas Law, the firm representing Colon's family, told MassLive Tuesday afternoon that they are exploring the possibility of a lawsuit.
Colon, 27, was at the nightclub to celebrate her sister's birthday when she collapsed on the dance floor shortly before 12:30 a.m. the morning of Sunday, Dec. 21, MassLive previously reported.
When police arrived, they found her unconscious on the floor with a large crowd around her.
Club staff said Colon did not appear intoxicated when she arrived, had been at the club for only about 30 minutes before she collapsed and was only served one drink.
Monteiro and another friend told police that they had had a couple of drinks and smoked before going to Icon, though they did not specify what they smoked, according to police reports.
As the officers called Emergency Medical Services and began providing CPR while trying to keep the crowd back, a club employee approached and told them she was also an emergency medical technician for Boston EMS.
She took over performing CPR so that police could focus on controlling the crowd, which was making it difficult to care for Colon.
Even with backup, officers could not control the crowd, they wrote in a police report, and eventually ordered the club to close and all patrons to leave.
Colon, whose sister and friend reported that she had a heart condition, was brought to Tufts Medical Center for treatment. Her family confirmed two days later that she had died, and the club's liquor license was suspended the following day.
Attorneys for Icon and staff said during Tuesday's hearing, which was held only to determine if a license violation had occurred, that they had immediately jumped into action when they learned a patron had collapsed and had done everything they could to help.
"Icon staff and security reacted to what can only be described as a catastrophe, a medical emergency set in a busy nightclub, with all necessary speed and professionalism," said attorney Tyler Henseler.
Security Director Kevin Montgomery said he called first responders within two minutes of Colon's collapse, using the direct line for EMS to avoid waiting to be routed through 911, and called again two minutes later to give an update when he realized Colon was not breathing.
Montgomery also disputed the claim that the crowd was encroaching on Colon and the first responders. He said his security staff "did a tremendous job" clearing a path for emergency personnel to get through the crowd.
He added that he deliberately did not close the club and order everyone to leave out of concern that a mass of people heading for the exits would make it more difficult for first responders to make it to the scene.
"If I had told everybody to leave at that point, you're going to have people standing outside, people standing in the lobby, and it's also creating a bottleneck of things when you're coming to the doors," he said. "It would be impossible for somebody to kind of cleanly get through."
Montgomery said Icon's maximum capacity is 481 people and estimated that there were about 370 people in the club at the time. There were 14 security staff working.
Following the incident, the club's management hired a security consultant to conduct an investigation.
The consultant, Michael Talbot, said Tuesday that the only major change to Icon's security policies was updating its camera system, which previously did not have appropriately synchronized time stamps.
One of the biggest questions of the hearing was whether the music in the club was still on while security staff and police were tending to Colon. Morales said when her sister first collapsed, she ran to the DJ booth to tell them to cut the music, which they did briefly.
But as she returned to her sister, it came back on. She said she could not get back to the DJ booth a second time because there were too many people in the way.
Montgomery told the board that he could not definitively remember if the music was still on when he was with Colon, but assumed it was not.
He said the first time he called EMS, he had to go outside because it was too loud in the club, but the second time, he was next to Colon, so he believed it was quieter. He suggested there may have been music coming from the club's secondary room, which could have been audible in the background.
Security video from the club did not have audio. But it showed people stopping dancing, according to descriptions shared during the hearing.
Morales and Shanice Monteiro, one of the friends who was with the sisters that night, both said the music came back on after the initial request to turn it off. Morales said she had a cellphone video showing this.
Neither the security video nor the cellphone video was shared publicly during the hearing.
Morales also said she had received a message on Facebook from the DJ, who told her he had received a text telling him to turn the music back on. These messages also were not shared publicly in the hearing, but she and the family's attorneys said they would submit them to the Licensing Board.
Montgomery said separately that the main house lights in the club were not immediately turned on for a while after Colon first collapsed.
But it was not clear how long it took for them to be turned on. He said initially, there were still flashing club lights, but they also used a white "spotlight" focused on the area to illuminate what was happening.
The Licensing Board will vote Thursday on whether a license violation occurred during the incident.
Colon's family has asked any members of the public with video of or information about the incident to contact Kahalas Law .
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