‘He Could Have Been Saved: Son of Ex-NYC Official Collapses from Overdose In Plain View of Casino Workers Who Continue Gambling Activities While Body Is on Floor for 11 Minutes, Video Shows

Surveillance video showed the son of a former New York City official pass out at a casino after suffering a drug overdose and lying on the floor for 11 minutes without any medical intervention.

Ethan Bherwani traveled from Long Island to Uncasville, Connecticut, to visit the Mohegan Sun Casino & Resort in May 2021.

The evening he arrived, the 22-year-old visited the casino, where surveillance footage showed him sitting at a blackjack table shortly before 2 a.m. on May 18, 2021.

Bherwani is seated at the table for about 10 minutes before he slumps over the table and collapses to the floor in clear view of other patrons, pit bosses and dealers.

It was later discovered that Bherwani bought cocaine laced with fentanyl in the casino bathroom from a drug dealer who also accompanied him to the blackjack table, the New York Post reported .

The dealer slips away after Bherwani collapses. The video shows some casino patrons and employees checking on Bherwani and hovering over his body for 11 minutes before medics arrive. But dealers kept sharing cards at other tables, and other players continued their games.

After administering CPR and other life-saving measures, they transported Bherwani to a local hospital.

Doctors there declared him brain dead, and he died nine days later.

Court documents reveal that Bherwani had fentanyl, cocaine, marijuana, and alcohol in his system. An addiction medical specialist testified that the fentanyl likely killed him.

Federal authorities began tracking down the dealer who sold Bherwani the drugs. Their investigation led them to 44-year-old Jerrard Santiago. Undercover agents bought fentanyl, heroin, and other narcotics from Santiago twice in February 2023. He was arrested the next month and pleaded guilty in January 2024 to drug distribution charges.

Kamal Bherwani, Ethan’s father and New York City’s former chief information officer for health and human services, said his law school-bound son was at the casino to celebrate his college graduation.

“It was a video that haunts me every day … You just wanted to reach out and just grab him because you knew he could have been saved … if quick action was taken,” Bherwani said. “Within three minutes, high probability if he had been given Narcan or naloxone, generic version of Narcan, he would be alive and well today.”

Bherwani argued that the casino bears responsibility for its lax response to his son’s collapse, stating that employees didn’t act quickly enough to administer medical aid and call 911.

“Narcan was and is always available at the casino,” the security adviser for Mohegan Sun, Michael Balboni, said, per CBS News . “However, safety protocol dictates that it is not used if it’s not known why a person has collapsed.”

Bherwani also alleged that since the casino is on a Native American reservation, it isn’t bound to the same federal laws as non-tribal localities and exercises its own justice system.

He sued the casino in 2022 for negligence. It was tossed due to a technicality, but he plans to sue again.

In the years after his son’s death, Bherwani has worked to generate awareness for the nation’s fentanyl crisis, calling for more robust federal efforts to curb drug smuggling from other countries, harsher penalties for drug-related offenses, and making medications that reverse overdoses like Narcan more widely available. He also developed a video game teaching players how to recognize overdose symptoms and administer Narcan. Its release is slated for next month.

‘He Could Have Been Saved: Son of Ex-NYC Official Collapses from Overdose In Plain View of Casino Workers Who Continue Gambling Activities While Body Is on Floor for 11 Minutes, Video Shows