The family of former North Carolina Central University basketball player Devin Butts is suing the university over the 22-year-old’s death in 2023, saying life-saving equipment was not available and the emergency response was too slow after Butts suffered cardiac arrest during an off-season workout.
The family claims NCCU allowed basketball coach LeVelle Moton to disregard school policy by allowing and encouraging athletes to work out unsupervised after hours, according to the lawsuit filed in state court, obtained by The News & Observer of Raleigh. It was one of many examples of the school failing to provide reasonable care, the lawsuit said.
The family of former North Carolina Central University basketball player Devin Butts is suing the university over the 22-year-old’s death in 2023, saying life-saving equipment was not available and the emergency response was too slow after Butts suffered cardiac arrest during an off-season workout.
The family claims NCCU allowed basketball coach LeVelle Moton to disregard school policy by allowing and encouraging athletes to work out unsupervised after hours, according to the lawsuit filed in state court, obtained by The News & Observer of Raleigh. It was one of many examples of the school failing to provide reasonable care, the lawsuit said.
Per the reporting of Steve Wiseman, the complaint said administrators at the university “created and/or allowed to exist a culture among the athletic department, particularly the men’s basketball team” that violated school policies and NCAA limitations on athletic activities.
The fatal incident occurred after Butts joined three of his NCCU basketball teammates late at night on April 30, 2023. Citing the lawsuit's account, Wiseman reported that the players entered the school’s McDougald-McLendon Arena in Durham through a side door, unlocked and propped open, for off-season work on the court. "It’s the kind of work they were expected to do on a voluntary basis, playing one-on-one and shooting baskets with no coaches or school administrators around," Wiseman wrote, citing the lawsuit.
Around 12:30 a.m., May 1, Butts suffered a sudden cardiac event and collapsed to the court. With no AED accessible and no one around to help, Butts’ teammates called 911 at 12:35 a.m. Eighteen minutes elapsed before Durham County EMTs arrived at 12:48 a.m. and restarted his heart, the lawsuit stated, but by then the player's brain had been deprived of much-needed oxygen, and he died four days later at Duke University Hospital in Durham.
The only AED located in the building that night, the lawsuit alleges, was in a trainer’s room, which was locked and located in a different part of the building.
“NCCU failed to exercise reasonable care to establish and enforce AED policies,” the lawsuit states, “to provide reasonable AED training and to ensure that AEDs are readily available at all NCCU athletic facilities.”
"Butts’ death certificate lists ventricular tachycardia as a cause of death," Wiseman wrote. "AEDs are able to restore a normal rhythm when a patient’s heart falls into ventricular tachycardia after a sudden cardiac event."
“Devin was denied essential, life-saving medical treatment that more likely than not would have restored his heart beat to a normal sinus rhythm and mitigated consequences of his cardiac event,” according to the lawsuit, which seeks monetary damages for Devin Butts’ pain and suffering, medical expenses related to the incident, loss of reasonably expected net income plus punitive damages.
The lawsuit, filed with the North Carolina Industrial Commission, also criticizes the NCCU administration for allowing the basketball team to prop open a door to the arena to allow its players access after hours when school policy strictly forbids it.
“To circumvent NCCU restrictions on access to McDougald-McLendon Arena and NCAA limitations on team-related activities, student-athletes regularly entered the basketball facility outside of normal working hours through a side door that remained propped open and unlocked and participated in unsupervised athletically related activities,” the lawsuit states, as reported by The News & Observer.
