The brutal hazing has been captured on surveillance footage. University of Missouri student who is now blind, unable to walk and unable to speak as a result of the brain damage caused when he stopped breathing after downing vodka and beer and passing out on a couch in his fraternity house.
Danny Santulli is 19 years old and has been left blind, in a wheelchair, and speech-impaired by the brain injury he sustained at Phi Gamma Delta’s ‘Pledge Dad Reveal Night’ on October 20, 2121. A Tito’s family-sized glass of beer was given to the teenager and force-fed through a tube.
Good Morning America obtained surveillance footage of Danny leading the pledges shirtless and with their blindfolds down a staircase at the frathouse.
Later, he’s forced to drink beer through a tube. He then falls backwards on a table, then collapses on a couch.
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Danny Santulli (19 years old) is blind and unable to speak. This was a direct result of brain injury he sustained during a night of brutal hazing in October.
Prior: Danny in 2020, before the hazing incident permanently left him disabled
Danny, holding a Tito’s bottle in one hand, is seen last October as he arrives at the party.
Danny, half-off on the couch in the frat house is seen after he passes out.
Danny fell unconscious on a couch at the frat home and his frat brothers took Danny to the hospital.
Above, Danny Santulli after being taken to a vehicle to drive to the hospital following a night of brutal hazing at University of Missouri Fraternity
Danny can be seen falling onto the table at the frathouse on October 20th last year.
Danny, who had already drunk a full-size bottle of Tito’s vodka and is forced to consume beer via a funnel or tube in this blurred image.
Photographs of fraternity pledges from Phi Gamma Delta are taken as they walk naked down the staircase of the frat house.
Before Danny died, the boys can be seen making their way through a frat house.
After realizing how serious his condition was, his frat brothers panickedly tried to get him in a car and take him to the hospital.
He had already stopped breathing long enough for severe brain damage by the time he reached his destination.
Danny, after months spent in rehabilitation centers, was finally released to Missouri by his mother. She now takes care of him around the clock.
His family had previously sued 23 people (including the fraternity) and was successful with an undisclosed agreement. Now, however, they are suing Alec Wetzler as well as Sam Gandhi.
Both are asking for felony charges to be filed against them.
Wetzler, who was accused of misdemeanor furnishing alcohol to a child, is not enrolled in the school. Gandhi however has not been charged.
The family claims that Gandhi witnessed the desperate state Danny was living in and did not help him until it was too late.
Danny’s mother, Dannya, wept as she revealed to Good Morning America Thursday that no of her children ever called 911.
Danny is shown here with his sister. He will never walk, talk, or see the same again. For the remainder of his life, he will require 24-hour care
Danny’s mom sobbed when she inquired why no one called 911 after seeing her son with blue lips.
“Just because nobody…they knew that he was in trouble. The blueness of his lips was evident and nobody called 911. Six year-olds dial 911.
She said that he would need care for the rest of their lives.
“He is still not walking or talking, and he uses a wheelchair. His sight was completely lost. However, he heard us and knew we were there. She said that they will keep fighting and won’t give up.
Danny’s sister expressed her dismay at the fact that no charges had been filed against the frat brothers.
She said, “It is sickening to see the people who harmed Danny walk around campus acting as if they didn’t do anything wrong.”
His father said, “I would like to see them with felon D’s”
DailyMail.com has previously reported that two brothers from fraternity were being sued.
Gandhi, an architecture student, is expected to graduate in the next year. Wetzler studies a bachelor’s degree in business administration.
Their amended lawsuit describes how they, along with others who have been sued before and who settled those cases, forcibly fed Santulli beer and provided him with a large bottle Tito’s.
Family of Danny Santulli names Samuel Gandhi and Alec Wetzler as defendants. Danny Santulli was a teenager who, according to his family, was made to drink till his heart stopped in October last year during pledge month at Phi Gamma Delta.
They finally took him to the hospital after he fell unconscious and suffered from cardiac arrest.
His vision is blurred and he cannot walk, talk, or see. To care for her son full-time, his mother quit her bank job.
According to the suit, the two wanted to make sure that the night was one that ‘the promises wouldn’t forget.’ So they filled the frat house full of ‘cocaine and marijuana’.
‘This is the worst fraternity hazing case ever in the US in terms of injury. There are no worse injuries than this and you can still live.
David Bianchi is an attorney representing the victim
The new pledges had family-sized bottles of Tito’s taped to their hands and were branded ‘p*****s’ if they stopped drinking, according to documents reviewed by DailyMail.com.
The suit also alleges that the school cautioned the boys for their previous hazing incidents.
Wetzler was charged with criminal offenses of providing alcohol to a child, but Santulli’s lawyer David Bianchi tells DailyMail.com that the family would like him to face charges for hazing.
“This is The” In terms of injuries, this is the worst case of fraternity-hazing ever to have occurred in the US. Bianchi claimed that it was impossible to be more severely injured than you are and yet be alive.
He stated that Danny’s prognosis was ‘grim.
After Santulli was admitted to the hospital, both the university and national fraternity suspended Missouri’s chapter
‘HE has severe brain damage and is blind. It’s highly unlikely that there will be any significant improvement in his condition.
Parents settled with 22 defendants, including the fraternity. They were banned from campus after repeated violations.
Bianchi moved Monday to include fraternity brothers Gandhi, Wetzler, in an amended petition. This motion was granted by Judge Joshua Devine.
Plaintiff Santulli (pictured), and his pledge class were forced to each drink one bottle of hard liquor given by their “pledge fathers”.
The lawsuit claims that Danny was given a large amount of Tito vodka by his fraternity brothers and instructed him to drink it all night.
As part of the brutal hazing, he had been there for over a month.
“He had been sleeping badly and was forced to pay for things for fraternity brothers from his own pocket. He received repeated orders to clean brothers’ bedrooms and to bring alcohol, food and marijuana to them all night.
“Making things worse, Danny was ordered to climb into a trashcan that contained broken glass during the pledge process,” the lawsuit states.
Danny had cried to his sister two nights prior to the incident.
He was told by his family to leave the fraternity, but he refused to do so because he wasn’t a quitter.
According to the suit, Weltzer was sitting on a chair looking for a target and saw Danny. After forcing him to consume a beer from a tube, Weltzer made Danny return to Tito’s in his large family size bottle.
According to the petition, Wetzler allegedly put a tube in Santulli’s mouth and forced him into drinking excessive amounts of alcohol.
Bianchi says Gandhi then left Santulli without having tried to aid him at first, when it was obvious that the freshman was intoxicated.
According to the lawsuit, he entered the room at 12.17am to see that Santulli was still there.
The blood alcohol content of the 19-year old was 0.486%, which is more than six times higher than the legal limit.
Santulli’s near-death experience with hazing was the latest of a series of similar incidents that have occurred in America within the last 10 years.
Since 2000, there have been over 200 school hazing deaths in the United States. 2019 was the most deadly year.
The most recent death was that of Phat Nguyen, a Michigan State University student who died in November last year from alcohol poisoning. His pledge was to Phi Alpha Phi.
Stone Foltz, Adam Oakes, and Stone Foltz both died earlier in the year at Virginia Commonwealth University. Both were both afflicted by acute alcohol poisoning.
Because schools had been closed by COVID-19, there were no hazing deaths for 2020.
Five children died from alcohol-related incidents in hazing.
The suit claims that frat boys at The University of Missouri (shown below) were under caution due to a past hazing incident