BOULDER — The parents of a Japanese physics phenomenon who killed herself at an institution near the University of Colorado two years ago are suing the health center, saying it was not watching the physicist closely enough.
Celebrated physics postdoctoral student Michi Nakata hanged herself with a noose she made from her hospital gown in 2006 at the Mapleton Center Behavioral Health Unit. Her parents say she was supposed to be under constant observation as one of the facility’s highest-risk suicide patients.
Kiyoshi and Yasuko Nakata are suing Boulder Community Hospital, which runs Mapleton Center, for wrongful death. The lawsuit alleges that the 30-year-old student from the Tokyo Institute of Technology should not have been left alone.
A spokesman for Boulder Community Hospital said he can’t comment on the lawsuit, which was filed last month. But spokesman Rich Sheehan said the physicist’s death has not been forgotten.
“It certainly was a tragic situation, and the people here were devastated by it,” Sheehan said.
