The helicopter carrying Amin Noroozi landed at John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek less than an hour after the 17-year-old broke his neck while swimming in the ocean.

Amin, a varsity football player, track and field athlete and wrestler at Acalanes High School, had lost feeling below his chest. But after an emergency surgery to stabilize his spine on April 13, his parents and younger sister said he moved a finger, and indicated he could sense a touch on his leg.

Although it was unclear whether Amin would walk again, doctors told his parents, Ofelia and Payman Noroozi, that he was young and strong, which would help with his physical rehabilitation and recovery.

“We were very hopeful,” Ofelia Noroozi told the Chronicle. “Everything seemed pretty OK, like they knew what they were doing.”

Over the next 48 hours, Amin’s temperature soared to 109 degrees, his electrolyte counts spiraled, and his heart rate plummeted. His parents have alleged in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Contra Costa Superior County Court that John Muir doctors failed to manage his increasingly critical condition. Amin died on April 17, just four days after arriving at John Muir.

“Despite the successful surgery, the critical post-surgical care was deficient, disorganized, unsupervised and spun out of control, directly and unnecessarily causing Amin Noroozi’s suffering and death,” according to the lawsuit, which alleges that John Muir should have transferred Amin to UCSF-Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland, the nearest top-level pediatric trauma center.

The complaint names John Muir, the neurocritical care physician who treated Amin, Dr. Sandeep Walia, and John Muir’s affiliate partner, Stanford Medicine Children’s Health, which the lawsuit alleges has allowed the community hospital to fraudulently present itself to the public as being capable of treating highly complex medical conditions.

John Muir declined to comment on specific allegations or details of Amin’s care, citing the pending litigation and patient privacy requirements.

“We extend our deepest sympathies to the family and loved ones of Mr. Noroozi,” the hospital said in a statement. “John Muir Health is a nationally recognized provider that treats complex, high-acuity cases using evidence-based protocols and multidisciplinary teams, and when appropriate we coordinate transfers through established regional networks.”

The hospital said its partnership with Stanford improves access to subspecialty expertise and maintains its high-quality care.

“We stand behind the professionalism and dedication of our physicians, nurses, and staff, and we remain focused on patient safety, quality, and continuous improvement,” John Muir said.

Stanford Medicine Children’s Health and Dr. Sandeep Walia, the neurocritical care physician who treated Amin, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In 2015, John Muir partnered with Stanford Medicine Children’s Health to open a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, or PICU, for critically ill children. Leaders of both hospital systems said at the time that the alliance would allow John Muir to provide top-notch care to children in the East Bay.

Although Amin was not treated in John Muir’s PICU, Ofelia and Payman Noroozi are the latest parents to accuse the community hospital of trading on its partnership with Stanford to take on cases beyond its expertise, leading to potentially preventable deaths.

A 2022 Chronicle investigative series detailed the deaths of four children at John Muir’s PICU, which top medical experts said appeared to reflect the hospital’s low patient volumes and inexperience treating exceptionally sick children. Those children included 2-year-old Ailee Jong, who died in 2019 during a complex liver surgery at John Muir. The hospital approved the procedure — its first-ever pediatric liver resection — despite warnings from staff members that the unit wasn’t prepared.

Ailee’s parents, who have an ongoing lawsuit against the hospital, also allege that it was the Stanford association that reassured them John Muir was capable of treating their daughter. John Muir and the doctors involved in Ailee’s care have denied the allegations. A judge is expected to set a trial date for next year.

Following the Chronicle’s reporting, federal and state health inspectors found John Muir’s PICU had violated regulations, forcing corrections and prompting threats to pull funding and close the unit.

Ofelia and Payman Noroozi, who live in Lafayette, said they knew nothing about this history as emergency medical specialists airlifted Amin to John Muir. Amin had been born there and as Ofelia and Payman researched the surgeon online and spoke to friends, they said the Stanford connection gave them confidence their son would receive excellent care.

“At that point, I was like, we know we have the best people working on him,” said Payman Noroozi. “At no point was there talk of him dying.”

Amin was a rambunctious, outgoing and social child, who showed maturity and skill beyond his youth. He fell in love with scooters at an early age, so the family searched for skate parks in their hometown of Lafayette and across the East Bay. There, Amin would befriend the older kids and eventually built his own scooter from scratch.

Although Amin got good grades, Ofelia recalled that he wasn’t particularly studious, often coming to her for help the night before a school project was due. Ofelia, who was born in Honduras, remembered laughing with Amin last school year as she tried to guide him through a Spanish class presentation, despite his limited Spanish.

“The whole thing was a disaster,” she recalled, “but the two of us had a blast.”

When the family moved to a new house close to Acalanes High in Lafayette, Ofelia and Payman said they became aware of an older neighbor with medical problems. Amin gravitated to him and soon, the neighbor would yell out Amin’s name, and the teen would walk over, helping him set up his television, internet and radio.

Another time, Amin sat next to a woman he found crying on the curb of a local grocery store parking lot and spoke to the stranger for more than an hour, his parents said. She attended Amin’s funeral.

“He never sugar coated anything, he was so authentic,” Ofelia said. “He literally told you the truth in a way that wasn’t hurtful.”

In middle school, he played flag football. By high school, he wore No. 51 and played offensive and defensive line.

“Amin fell in love with football,” Ofelia said. “Not just with football but his teammates and coaches.”

After football season, he joined the track and field team, throwing shotput and discus. And because his father wrestled in high school, he joined the Acalanes team and qualified for the North Coast Section Championship. His father called him a “gentle giant.”

The morning of April 13, Amin gave his mother a kiss before leaving with his girlfriend to Stinson Beach, a popular Marin County shoreline Amin had visited many times. That Sunday was a stunning spring day, and a bunch of East Bay high school kids met to hang out and swim.

A half hour after setting up, Amin and his girlfriend Audrey Martin, also an Acalanes High junior at the time, ran into the cold Pacific Ocean for a quick dip, she recalled. As they waded into the salty, grey knee-deep water, a small wave rose. Audrey dove through before it broke.

When she surfaced, Amin was floating face down in the water, she said. Audrey thought he was joking, but when she flipped Amin over he told her he couldn’t feel his legs. Authorities would later say that they believed his head struck a sand bar. Audrey said she screamed for help and teens from Acalanes and nearby Campolindo high schools rushed to pull Amin from the water.

“I was really scared and really nervous,” said Audrey, now 17. “He was an athletic guy and he loved to do stuff. It’s just really scary when someone says they can’t move their limbs.”

A medical helicopter arrived for Amin. Paramedics determined the closest Marin County hospital, a Level 3 trauma center, was inadequate for his severe injuries, the lawsuit alleges. Instead, he was airlifted to John Muir, a Level 2 adult trauma center, bypassing UCSF-Benioff Children’s hospital in Oakland, a Level 1 pediatric trauma center, the highest caliber.

“A community hospital like John Muir does not have the resources to treat complex cases such as Amin’s,” said attorney Dan Horowitz, co-counsel for the Noroozi family. “They should have transferred him 15 miles down the road to UCSF Benioff and he would have survived.”

Amin’s mother was working in the family’s food truck when she got the call.

It was Amin’s number, but his girlfriend was on the other end. Amin was hurt, Ofelia recalled the girl saying. He hurt his neck and couldn’t feel his legs. They raced home.

The phone rang again. This time it was Amin as Audrey held a phone to his ear, his mother recalled.

“Hi Baba,” Ofelia said.

“Hi Mom, I got hurt,” he said. He explained he wasn’t in pain, but he had lost feeling below his chest. Amin’s girlfriend took the cell and told the family to meet them at John Muir.

Payman began calling friends and family. Was John Muir the right place to be?

They all agreed, he recalled, the Walnut Creek facility had topnotch credentials. Online, Payman read how it provided Stanford level care as part of its partnership.

However, the lawsuit claims that John Muir should have transferred Amin upon learning the severity of his injury. They allege John Muir was out of its depth as it did not treat such severe cases on a regular basis like surrounding tertiary hospitals, such as children’s hospitals in Oakland and Palo Alto.

“Calling yourself Stanford does not make you Stanford,” the suit said, referring to John Muir Health as JMH. “Yet JMH has constructed an elaborate, systematic branding scheme designed to create the false impression that patients receiving care at JMH are receiving Stanford-level medical care.”

The X-ray contained bad news, the doctor explained shortly after Amin’s arrival. He had shattered his C-5 vertebrae and damaged his spine. While he could partially move his arms and shoulders, he could not move his hands or anything in his lower body. The doctor said he was paralyzed.

“Excuse me?!” Amin told the doctor, according to his mother. “Tell me again, I don’t think I heard you right.”

“I’m sorry buddy, you are paralyzed from the chest down,” the doctor said.

Amin turned toward Ofelia.

“Mom, I want to cry but I can’t,” Amin told her. “The tears are not coming.”

“Mi amor, I will take you anywhere in the world. I will find a way to get you better,” she said.

Hours after his arrival, nurses wheeled Amin into surgery, where a surgeon removed a portion of his vertebrae and fused three together to stabilize his spine.

“People around us were saying they are the best. They have surgeons from Stanford,” Payman recalled. “Even the nurse was saying this is something that we see all the time. It is nothing that is new to us, so that made me feel better.”

The surgery appeared to be a success.

Still sedated and with tubes preventing him from speaking, Amin wagged his finger after his sister Sahar joked with him that if he didn’t get better soon she’d start driving his BMW. Not long after, a doctor poked Amin’s lower body asking if he could feel her touch his leg. At one spot, Amin nodded yes.

His parents started researching a rehabilitation center in Colorado.

A catastrophic neck injury can disrupt the communication between the brain and the body’s autonomic nervous system, which controls involuntary functions like body temperature regulation and blood pressure. Constant monitoring is required. The lawsuit claims John Muir staff fell short in Amin’s post-surgery care.

When Amin suffered cardiovascular instability, the hospital “inappropriately treated” him with the wrong drugs for his condition, the family alleges. It caused his heart to slow, the suit said.

Amin also developed severe hypokalemia, critically low potassium levels that can lead to cardiac arrest. The hospital did little to bring it up, the lawsuit alleges, and when they finally responded, they overcorrected, sending his potassium levels soaring dangerously in the other direction — levels approaching those used by veterinarians for euthanasia, the lawsuit claims.

In addition, the lawsuit claims the hospital failed to diagnose and treat an infection and signs of sepsis. When testing was performed, a protein released into the bloodstream to fight bacterial infections was at such an elevated level it indicated sepsis had been raging for days unchecked, the suit said.

Amin’s fever rose to 109 degrees and remained elevated for more than 12 hours, according to the suit. The hospital only administered an over-the-counter fever reducer, the family alleges.

“Amin was allowed to overheat so that his entire metabolic system was off the charts,” Horowitz said. “No parent would let their child run a 109 fever without massive intervention, why did John Muir basically sit back and watch?”

The hospital indicated it used cooling blankets at one point, according to the suit, but the hospital failed to use one of its more powerful Arctic Sun cooling devices designed to control hyperthermia in critically ill patients until moments before his heart stopped.

After returning from the cafeteria on the afternoon of April 17, Payman found Amin’s room in chaos. Multiple doctors and nurses took turns with chest compressions on his son.

Daryoosh Khashayar, a family friend who is also representing Ofelia and Payman as an attorney, walked in expecting to greet Amin. Instead, he heard Payman screaming and people yelling “Code Blue!”

Ofelia and Sahar arrived soon after, holding Amin’s hands for more than 20 minutes as nurses performed CPR.

Doctors declared Amin dead at 3:41 p.m.

Payman said he asked a doctor what happened and he repeatedly said: “I don’t know.” Ofelia, Payman and Sahar stayed in the room with Amin for hours, as word spread in the lobby where more than 100 friends, as well as Amin’s coaches, had gathered.

The community raised almost $200,000 for the family with friends, family and rival teams donating money and sending condolences. Now, days after what would have been Amin’s final Homecoming dance, the family said it wants accountability.

“We just don’t want it to happen again,” Ofelia said. “We cannot bring my son back, we cannot take away the pain. We lost someone extremely valuable to this world, he had his whole life ahead of him and it got cut short because of mistakes that could have been prevented.”