BURLINGTON — The family of a man who reportedly died last year after an injury in prison is suing the Vermont Department of Corrections and its health care provider, claiming that prison and medical staff didn’t properly treat the man’s diabetes, leading to his death at 40 years old.
Jason Colebaugh died last April from injuries he sustained on March 2, 2025, when he fell from his top bunk onto his cell floor in Northern Correctional Facility in Newport during a seizure prompted by low blood sugar, according to his family’s lawsuit.
Colebaugh fell “head first onto the concrete floor” while he seized, said Lisa Steadman, Colebaugh’s mother, at a press conference Monday in downtown Burlington. The impact fractured his skull and nicked an artery, causing a brain bleed that led to his death, she said.
His family is now seeking unspecified damages, filing the wrongful death lawsuit in Chittenden County Superior Court on the one-year anniversary of Colebaugh’s injury.
Steadman, on behalf of her son’s estate, is suing the Vermont Department of Corrections, a handful of individual employees and the for-profit health care company Wellpath, which the department contracts to provide medical services.
The health care company contracts with prisons around the country and has faced dozens of lawsuits alleging medical negligence and wrongful death, according to NPR. In 2023, a whistleblower in Vermont revealed that the highest ranking healthcare employee at a Vermont prison had formerly lost his nursing license in three other states.
The department declined to comment on the litigation. A spokesperson for Wellpath did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
Bill Steadman, Lisa’s husband, said he remembers Colebaugh as his “right-hand man.” Lisa Steadman remembers him as hilarious and exceptionally handsome.
While Bill Steadman said Colebaugh “made a couple mistakes,” he thinks Colebaugh was treated unjustly.
“They think he’s an animal,” he said. “That’s why they treat him as an animal. We treat pigs and cows better.”
At the time of Colebaugh’s death, he was serving time for violating the conditions of his probation, according to David Rankin, a New York City attorney representing the family’s case. The lawsuit also targets an employee at a Vermont probation and parole office, alleging that Colebaugh was denied his due process on the probation violation.
The lawsuit describes six previous periods in which Colebaugh was incarcerated, starting in fall 2017. Rankin and the Steadmans declined to comment on Colebaugh’s criminal past or the charges he was on probation for. Court records show that Colebaugh was accused of committing more than 16 crimes in Chittenden County since 2006, but details of those charges were not immediately available.
The department declined to comment on the litigation. A spokesperson for Wellpath did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday.
Colebaugh’s obituary — using his nicknames Jayson and Jay — describes him as someone who struggled with addiction throughout his adulthood.
“Jay’s addiction did not define him, but it did rob him of his happiness and his ability to be the son, brother, father, husband, and all the things that he wanted to be,” his obituary says.
Bill and Lisa Steadman said they think their son was denied medical care that he had the right to receive. In the lawsuit, the family said that Colebaugh submitted many requests to see a doctor before he was actually given an appointment, and, in some instances, he was not provided medication that a doctor told him he would be given.
After Colebaugh fell from his bunk, he was originally brought to a Newport hospital without an intensive care unit, Lisa Steadman said. He then was transported to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, New Hampshire, she said.
“By the time Jay reached Dartmouth, it was too late,” Lisa Steadman said.
And seeing him in the hospital came with grotesque moments, the Steadmans explained. Colebaugh remained handcuffed to the hospital bed even after he was considered brain-dead, Bill Steadman said.
“The idea that the Department of Corrections can’t treat and refuses to treat Jay’s diabetes is completely unacceptable,” Rankin said.
Nine people died in the custody of the Vermont Department of Corrections in 2025, according to January data from Haley Sommer, a spokesperson for the department. As of Jan. 30, two people have died in the custody of the department in 2026.
