FARMINGTON — The mother of a 17-year-old student who died at the Clearfield Job Corps Center has filed a lawsuit alleging the staff was negligent in dealing with the girl’s diabetic condition and lied to cover up the failure after she suffered seizures and cardiac arrest.

The wrongful-death suit filed in 2nd District Court at Farmington by Adriana Delaluz of Idaho Falls, Idaho, accuses Centerville-based Management and Training Corp. in connection with the March 10, 2014, death of Isela Huerta Carranza. The teen was a resident student at the center, where she’d been for four months, the suit said.

MTC manages the Job Corps site for the U.S. Labor Department. The group’s website says it operates 19 Job Corps centers in 17 states and provides academic, technical and social skills training to 14,000 young adults annually. The company said it also manages contracts for recruiting students into the Job Corps program and placing them in jobs, higher education or the military. 

The suit, filed Feb. 18 for Delaluz by Logan attorney Shawn Bailey, alleges MTC employees failed to restrict Carranza from leaving the Clearfield center after assuring Delaluz they would closely monitor the girl due to her diabetes.

A friend of the girl contacted the center on Sunday, March 9, 2014, from Salt Lake City, saying Carranza did not have her insulin. The girl had stayed overnight in Salt Lake and MTC sent someone to pick her up later Sunday, the suit said.

The suit says the employee did not bring Carranza’s insulin. After returning to the center, the teen suffered seizures and was told to go to the Job Corps wellness center, according to the suit. Job Corps personnel called Davis County paramedics only after she went into cardiac arrest, the lawsuit alleges.

By then Carranza had gone 24 hours without insulin, a deficiency that caused diabetic ketoacidosis, which is characterized by potentially fatal levels of glucose and ketone in the blood, the suit said. “Despite being informed that Isela had left the facility the day before unsupervised and without her insulin, MTC failed to take reasonable and appropriate action to ensure that Isela received her insulin as quickly as possible,” the suit says.

The suit said Carranza died while her mother was driving from Idaho to Clearfield after being told of her daughter’s condition. The suit did not specify the date of her death.

An autopsy performed by the Utah Medical Examiner’s Office concluded the cause of death was diabetic ketoacidosis, according to the suit, which seeks unspecified damages.

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Though a toxicology screen later performed in conjunction with the autopsy came up negative for drugs or alcohol, MTC employees alleged Carranza consumed alcohol and-or drugs during her stay in Salt Lake City and claimed that caused her death, the suit said. 

The suit charges MTC “made these defamatory statements maliciously for the purpose of covering up its wrongdoing that caused the death of Isela.”

“The facts we’ve outlined in the complaint raise very serious concerns that raise very serious repercussions for this family that has suffered this horrible loss,” Bailey said in a phone interview Monday.

The Labor Department, which runs the federal Job Corps program, was not named as a defendant in the suit.

“Generally in these cases the government does not maintain control of the day-to-day operation — they contract it out to a contractor,” Bailey said. “MTC is responsible for the way they run their business.”

Issa Arnita, MTC spokesman, said the company would not comment about the complaint because it is in open litigation.

“But I will say the Clearfield Job Corps is an outstanding place with tremendous staff who care for the students with the sole purpose of providing for their well-being and to train them for good jobs,” Arnita said over the phone.

You can reach reporter Mark Shenefelt at mshenefelt@standard.net or 801-625-4224.