A University of Missouri student is still blind and unable to walk or communicate after being forced to drink an entire bottle of vodka during a fraternity hazing.
Danny Santulli, 19, has returned to his parents’ care in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, after spending months in a Colorado rehabilitation center, and his mother has left her high-powered banking career to become his full-time caregiver.
The freshman was poisoned by alcohol in October at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity house on campus, known as Fiji.
Santulli and the rest of his pledge class were forced to drink a bottle of strong liquor handed to them by their ‘pledge fathers,’ according to his parents, who have sued the fraternity.
After frat brothers dropped him off to University Hospital, he was found lifeless and in cardiac arrest inside a car.
The teenager has returned home eight months after the tragic tragedy, but his condition is not improving, according to attorney David Bianchi.
‘He has major brain damage,’ he told the Columbia Tribune. He’s deaf. He’s unable to communicate or walk.’
The parents have reached a settlement with 22 defendants and the fraternity, which has been barred from campus due to repeated infractions.
Bianchi also filed a move on Monday to add fraternity brothers Samuel Gandhi and Alec Wetzler to an amended petition, which Judge Joshua Devine authorized.
According to the petition, Wetzler forced Santulli to drink an excessive amount of alcohol by inserting a tube into his mouth and pouring beer down his throat.
According to Bianchi, Gandhi then walked away from Santulli after initially attempting to help him when it became evident that the freshman was dangerously inebriated.
According to the lawsuit, he entered the room at 12.17 a.m. and discovered Santulli had not moved from where he had left him.
The blood-alcohol content of the 19-year-old was 0.486 percent, which was more than six times the legal limit for driving.
‘At 12.28 a.m., Danny slid partially off the couch and ended up with his face on the floor, but he had no voluntary control of his arms or legs and remained there until someone walking through the room noticed him and helped him back onto the couch,’ according to the updated plea. Despite the fact that his skin was pale and his lips were blue, no one called 911.
He was later brought to MU Hospital in the automobile of one of his fraternity brothers, but he was already in cardiac arrest.
Santulli was remained ‘unresponsive, oblivious of his surroundings, unable to communicate, and (with) a substantial harm to his brain’ after hospital professionals did CPR and restarted his heart.
Wetzler is also facing criminal charges for selling alcohol to a minor and possessing alcohol by a minor, all of which are misdemeanors.
At the hazing, Ryan Delanty, a fraternity member, was chosen as Santulli’s “pledge dad.”
‘My son is dead,’ he allegedly texted a buddy at 10.57 p.m.
When the friend inquired about what had happened, Delanty stated, “I left him.”
Wetzler’s first appearance in court for the criminal accusations is set for July 5.