PHILADELPHIA - It's an $85,000 settlement in a lawsuit brought over a man who suffered cardiac arrest on a Greyhound bus and later died.
Attorneys on Feb. 7 in Philadelphia federal court asked for approval of the agreement, reached by the remaining Greyhound defendants in a case brought on behalf of the Estate of Joseph Bracken.
Bracken was 32 years old when he suffered cardiac arrest on a bus that departed South Carolina for Philadelphia. Toxicology results reported positive for fentanyl in his system.
He was on life support at Jefferson Hospital and never regained consciousness. His cause of death was respiratory arrest secondary to opioid overdose and cardiac arrest, plus cerebral edema.
Bracken boarded the bus on Aug. 12, 2021. Bracken called his mom, Dawn Mannella, several times to complaint that he and other passengers were extremely hot because the air conditioning was not working.
"The only source of air was a small fan blowing on the driver," the lawsuit says.
"Despite temperatures reaching up to 98 degrees in Baltimore, a stop on the bus’s route, and 95 degrees in Philadelphia, the bus continued operating without air conditioning for the passengers. Passengers asked the bus driver to request a bus with working air conditioning, but the driver declined.”
Bracken's health turned between Baltimore and Philadelphia. The bus arrived in Philadelphia at the defendant Greyhound Terminal at approximately 7 p.m. on Aug. 13, 2021. Greyhound employees and the driver left Bracken's luggage on the sidewalk at the defendant Greyhound Terminal.
After unloading the luggage and the other passengers departed, the driver parked the bus in the lot, located at 9th and Filbert Streets. The driver did not conduct a search of the bus, prior to or after parking the bus in the lot.
Bracken did not answer calls from Mannella. More than an hour after the bus had arrived, another drive boarded it and found bracken unresponsive on it.
"During this time, Ms. Mannella continued to call her son. Finally, at approximately 10:30 p.m., a physician at TJUH answered Dawn’s call on her son’s phone," the suit says.
"TJUH informed Dawn that Joseph was left trapped on the bus for several hours after experiencing a cardiac arrest. Due to the significant time in which Joseph was left unattended on the hot bus, he suffered catastrophic anoxic brain and organ damage."
Bracken died two days later. Mannella claimed health care staff told her that if Bracken had been found sooner, he would've survived.
The plaintiff is represented by Lane R. Jubb Jr. of The Beasley Firm, in Philadelphia. From the settlement, his firm seeks reimbursement of $12,000 for costs, plus a contingency fee of $28,333.33. That would leave the plaintiffs with about $45,000 from the $85,000 agreement.
Ninety-five percent of the settlement is attributed to wrongful death claims, and the rest to a survival claim.
"This allocation between Wrongful Death and Survival is fair and reasonable under the circumstances where Mr. Bracken’s Estate did not suffer harm in his death, attributed to fentanyl which is a central nervous system depressant, and he was not employed at the time of his passing," the petition says.
"Ms. Mannella and (Bracken's dad) continue to grieve the loss of their son and the companionship he provided."