A Maui Police Department recruit who was hospitalized for heat stroke and fell into a coma in February 2022 is suing four officers, claiming they failed to render aid after she passed out during a cross-country run.

Alexa Jacobs, then 27 years old, was taken to the Maui Memorial Medical Center emergency room and later medevaced to Queen’s Medical Center on Oahu, awakening from a coma a few days later, her family reported at the time.

The four MPD officers — a lieutenant, a sergeant, a detective and a police officer — were in charge of running the 92nd recruit class through a five-month training program, according to a complaint filed Thursday in 2nd Circuit Court.

“We are aware that a lawsuit has been filed, but we have not been served with the complaint and have no comment at this time,” MPD spokesperson Alana Pico said Monday afternoon.

On Feb. 4, 2022, Jacobs and her classmates underwent “Beat-Down Friday,” described as a hazing ritual employed by training officers on the first Friday of academy to narrow down the recruiting class, the complaint said.

The recruits performed vertical jumps and bench presses in the Wailuku Police Station’s gym that morning before running a quarter-mile around noon to War Memorial Stadium, where they completed a 1.5-mile track run, a 300-meter sprint, push-ups and sit-ups.

The complaint alleges the training officers “could see that the recruits were fatigued and dehydrated.”

“Rather than calling it a day and sending the recruits back to the gym to shower and rest, Defendants decided to crank up the pressure on the recruits by ordering them to do an extra cross-county run,” the complaint said. “The cross-country run was not part of the standard PT Assessment but an extra task imposed on the recruits as part of ‘Beat-Down Friday.'”

Temperatures at the time were around 83 degrees Fahrenheit, with humidity of 84.8 percent.

Whenever recruits fell behind, the others were ordered to perform exercises until they caught up. The group was about a half-mile from the stadium when the training officers ordered Jacobs and two other classmates to stop on Kanaloa Avenue and start doing “sun gods” until the others caught up.

” ‘Sun gods’ is a physical routine where one stands with arms sticking straight out and doing small-arm circles while counting each one out loud,” the complaint explained. “Plaintiff by this point in time was unable to speak and not able to say the numbers while doing the ‘sun gods’ because she was just trying to focus on her heart rate and breathing.”

One of Jacobs’ classmates later stated that he noticed her lips had turned bright blue during the exercise. After the other recruits arrived and the group started running again, Jacobs began to fall back “due to extreme exhaustion.”

One of the training officers, a sergeant, could see Jacobs was tiring, but continued “riding on her and ordering her to push harder and run faster,” the complaint said.

Stopping again to wait for one of their classmates on the dirt path outside of the Maui Nui Botanical Gardens, Jacobs and other recruits were ordered to get into a position similar to a plank. Taking up position “was the last memory she had before she passed out.”

“After Plaintiff lost consciousness, Defendants consciously failed or refused to immediately call Dispatch or 911,” the complaint said. “Defendants ordered the rest of the recruits to cross the street and stand on the adjacent sidewalk in the shade, leaving Plaintiff lying on the dirt pavement unconscious under the hot sun.”

The training officers told three of the recruits who were ex-military to render aid.

“For about five to ten minutes the recruits tried to get her to regain her consciousness by pouring water on her neck, and she did not respond,” the complaint said. “The three recruits later stated that Plaintiff was opening her eyes but was completely unresponsive to commands.”

It took around five minutes before one of the training officers, a detective, called dispatch for an ambulance, but failed to tell them it was an emergency, according to the complaint.

While waiting for the ambulance, one of the recruits asked a training officer if he was going to do anything, “to which he dismissed her question by saying, ‘I’m not a medic,'” the complaint said.

A lieutenant arrived on scene, but instead of putting Jacobs in his police-subsidized vehicle and taking her to the hospital a half-mile away, he parked his car “and stood across the street in the shade with the rest of the training officers and recruits. He made no attempt to render aid at all,” the complaint said.

About 10 minutes after the call, the ambulance arrived with its lights off and rushed Jacobs to the hospital, where they determined her body temperature was 107.4 degrees Fahrenheit. The training officers allegedly failed to provide her name to EMTs, did not accompany her in the ambulance or go to the hospital to check on her, and did not notify her emergency contacts, the complaint said.

Her fiance found out about one to two hours later from another recruit, and her parents didn’t know how dire her condition was until doctors at Maui Memorial “called them to come to the hospital right away because the chances of their daughter surviving were not good.”

Based on their training and knowledge, the officers should have known the risks of running the recruits in hot and humid weather, the symptoms of heat stroke and the importance of administering immediate first aid care, the complaint said.

“After the Incident, Defendants downplayed the incident; minimized her injury; and made it seem like what happened was not as big of a deal, stating repeatedly to her parents that it was just a ‘light jog,'” the complaint said.

Alleging failure to render aid and intentional infliction of emotional distress, the complaint calls for “special, general and punitive or exemplary damages” to be determined at a trial or hearing.

In May 2022, the Hawaii Occupational Safety and Health Division cited MPD for safety violations in the wake of Jacobs’ hospitalization. The citation said MPD’s failure to identify hazards and train employees on them “exposed recruits to injury and illness associated with their first cross-country run.” Pico said at the time that MPD had clarified its safety and health training program to ensure recruits understood the hazards and that the state agreed to reduce the fine from $10,360 to $7,252.

* Managing Editor Colleen Uechi can be reached at cuechi@mauinews.com.