TW: This article mentions details of racial discrimination.
A woman of color, who worked as a nurse at a Colorado hospital, claimed she was racially discriminated against in 2019 after being blamed for the death of a 93-year-old patient and then fired for complaining about the incident. She has now been awarded $20 million.
41-year-old DonQuenick Joppy sued HCA-HealthOne LLC, the parent company of The Medical Center of Aurora, in U.S. District Court in Colorado in April 2022, three years after she was fired — following accusations that she was responsible for the death of an elderly woman suffering from septic shock and organ failure, who was unconscious and on a ventilator. “It’s wild,” Joppy said in an interview. “My life has been turned upside down… I never killed anyone. I’m a great nurse.”
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As reported by Atlanta Black Star, following the family’s decision to end life support, and acting on directions from a respiratory therapist via phone, Joppy withdrew the ventilator and comforted the family throughout the patient’s passing. Even though a medical examiner ruled the death natural, the hospital blamed Joppy for neglect. It accused her of “acting outside her scope” and turning off his ventilator, possibly causing him to suffocate and suffer for 13 minutes.
Standard procedure required that the respiratory therapist, not the nurse — disconnect the ventilator, and the hospital denied that the therapist had instructed her to do so. The outlet reported that the Colorado Attorney General’s Office filed charges of manslaughter and negligent death of an at-risk person, both felonies, against Joppy in November 2020. Still, they were dropped in September 2021 in the interest of justice.
Jury awards $20M to nurse fired by HCA HealthOne Aurora https://t.co/NG5e7xW7IJ
— SandyB (@SandyBro20th) August 21, 2025
Joppy was determined to fight the case; she argued that she knew the patient was unconscious and did not breathe even once during his time in the ICU. She was adamant in her claims, saying that The Medical Center of Aurora (TMAC) knowingly exaggerated the case to defame her character and fire her due to her previous complaints of unfair treatment during her tenure.
In the complaint, Joppy, who joined the hospital in 2017, claimed she was repeatedly subjected to racial bias and mistreatment by staff, including being yelled at by a nurse named Lindsay Jordan, isolated, and passed over for training opportunities and passed on to others. She also said supervisors failed to act on her complaints and later issued a retaliatory performance plan. When she attempted to transfer to another unit, her application was abruptly dismissed.
It quoted that she was “subject to verbal and nonverbal slights and microaggressions designed to marginalize, segregate, and undermine her based on stereotypical and harmful views of Black professionals.” Despite prosecutors eventually dropping criminal charges brought against her, Joppy said the accusations and termination devastated her career and personal life, including separating her from her daughter due to financial hardship.
Thankfully, in August 2025, a jury found that the hospital had indeed retaliated against her and awarded her $5 million in compensatory and $15 million in punitive damages. Meanwhile, HCA-HealthOne, the hospital’s parent company, denied wrongdoing and has announced plans to appeal.
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Racial discrimination based on caste, color, and ethnicity is still widely relevant amongst people of color in several countries across the world. It’s a shame that even though we are in 2025, an era where technology, healthcare, and education opportunities are so advanced and wide, certain people and systems are still rooted in outdated stereotypical beliefs, which are not only illegal but dangerous to the evolution of humankind.
