Lawsuit Alleges Aramark Hospital Workers Ignored Dying Man for 15 Hours in China

A federal wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Friedman Schuman Layser PC attorneys alleges that Philadelphia-based Aramark employees ignored 37-year-old U.S. citizen Zachary Graff for more than 15 hours during a medical emergency in a hospital in China, leading to his tragic and preventable death. The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, claims that at least 10 Aramark employees saw Graff in clear medical distress on May 7, 2023, with staff cleaning around him, walking past him, talking to him while unresponsive, and ultimately locking him on the fourth floor of the hospital overnight.

According to the suit, Graff visited a clinic inside Gulou Hospital, a facility that contracted with Philadelphia-based Aramark to provide cleaning and security services in Nanjing, to fill a prescription for chronic knee pain. After taking the medication around 10:30 a.m., he began staggering as he walked through the facility and sat in a chair near an escalator on the hospital's fourth floor, where he remained unresponsive and breathing abnormally for hours. Fifteen hours worth of security footage reviewed by the family shows Aramark employees walking past Graff repeatedly, cleaning around him and attempting to engage him; one security guard told him to stop sleeping on three occasions, while another Aramark employee picked up his phone charger that had fallen to the floor.

The filing alleges the floor was later locked and the lights turned off with Graff still inside. When his wife arrived around 11 p.m., she had been unable to reach Zachary for hours. Aramark security initially refused her entry, and only granted access after she involved the police and they reviewed the surveillance video. She found him at about 2:15 a.m. unconscious and barely alive. Only after pleading with the Aramark security guards did they call for medical assistance. At 2:28 a.m., medical assistance arrived but were unable to resuscitate Zachary. He was pronounced dead at 2:48 a.m.

This case highlights significant concerns about international corporate responsibility and oversight of contracted services in healthcare settings. The lawsuit names Philadelphia-based Aramark Corporation and multiple subsidiaries, alleging negligent hiring, training, supervision and retention by the company. Brett J. Kaminsky of Friedman Schuman Layser PC stated that this case is about systemic neglect that starts at Aramark's headquarters in Philadelphia, noting that Aramark failed to ensure adequate staffing, training and oversight, and those failures cost a young man his life. The case is Baehmann v. Aramark Corp. et al., No. 2:25-cv-02758, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.