Former Packers Super Bowl champion Brady Poppinga is suing a Los Angeles hospital and its doctors after his 17-year-old son, Julius, died last year after suffering a lung blockage, according to TMZ.
Poppinga filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles earlier this week against Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in Tarzana, Calif., alleging wrongful death due to medical negligence, per the report.
The family is seeking unspecified damages, according to the outlet.
The family alleges they brought Julius to the facility last Aug. 27 while he experienced chest pains and breathing issues, and two days later he struggled to stay conscious while battling a shortage of breath.
Julius awoke “tearful and afraid” that day and told his mother, Brooke, he believed “he was going to die,” per TMZ.
The family alleges that one doctor “negligently and wrongfully concluded” Julius was suffering a panic attack and then prescribed his medication before he died shortly after, according to the report.
The lawsuit says an autopsy revealed Julius died of a pulmonary embolism, which is a blot clod that blocks blood flow in the lung, per mayoclinic.org.
Reports at that time said Julius died of a collapsed lung. He was a lacrosse and two-way football player for Thousand Oaks (Calif.) High School.
Brady posted a heartfelt message to his son on X after his death.
“I would like to thank EVERYONE for their unbelievably beautiful, sweet and loving compassion sent our way,” he wrote last Aug. 31. “Julius is a special soul who has touched so many lives. He is missed, but we KNOW that through the Savior, we will see him and be with him again. #famliesareforever.”
Brady played for the Packers, Cowboys, and Rams in his eight-season NFL career, which spanned from 2005-12, with six of those seasons coming with Green Bay.
He appeared in six regular-season games during Green Bay’s 2010 championship season.
The Packers drafted him in the fourth round of the 2005 NFL Draft out of BYU.
