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His parents want criminal charges to be filed.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Jun 09, 2022
A family has released security camera footage of a hazing incident that left their son permanently brain-damaged in the hopes of getting justice.
In October 2021, then-18-year-old Danny Santulli was forced to drink an entire family-sized bottle of Tito’s Vodka and fed beer through a tube at Phi Gamma Delta’s “Pledge Dad Reveal Night” at the University of Missouri.
After spending six weeks in the University of Missouri hospital ICU and then being transferred to a Colorado rehab for seven months, Santulli has finally returned home.
The Phi Gamma Delta pledge was left with permanent brain damage after the hazing incident.
He will require care “for life” after receiving permanent brain damage from the incident that left him blind, unable to speak, and unable to walk.
Danny Santulli’s family is now demanding felony charges against the fraternity brothers involved in the Missouri hazing incident.
After the incident occurred, the University of Missouri revoked the fraternity’s charter and proposed sanctions against 13 of its members while prosecutors charged one member with two misdemeanors for supplying alcohol to a minor.
The Santulli family expressed their disapproval of the university’s response in an interview with ABC News.
“I do personally want to see specific kids get [Class D felonies], that’s going to wake them up,” said Tom Santulli, David’s father.
“A misdemeanor is not going to wake them up.”
When asked if their family thought that Danny had been hazed, they all gave a yes in agreement, criticizing the university for not taking this manner more seriously.
"Missouri has what I would call a rather typical hazing statute," David Bianchi, the family’s attorney, said. "And the conduct that occurred that night at pledge dad reveal night is textbook hazing."
Surveillance footage exclusively obtained by Good Morning America revealed how the night of October 19th, 2021.
The video shows Danny being fed alcohol before becoming unresponsive.
"They were given their family bottle of alcohol and then they drank from it and they took them upstairs and for the next two hours, they drank and drink and drink," Bianchi said.
“We see one of the fraternity members putting a tube in Danny’s mouth with a funnel at the other end and pouring beer down his throat.”
Around 11 p.m. on the 19th, Danny can be seen losing his balance and toppling over to the floor, where some fraternity members lifted him and then placed him on a sofa in the other room.
After an hour and a half, around 12:30 a.m., Danny can be seen slipping off the couch to the ground as he struggles to move, eventually lying still.
He was found 15 minutes later by a fraternity member who discovered that he was unresponsive.
Calling several members over to check on a still unresponsive Danny, they then decided to take him to the hospital, but by then it was already too late.
"Just the fact that they knew he was in distress and his lips were blue, and nobody called 911. It's, like, I don't know. I mean a 6-year-old calls 911," Mary Pat Santulli told ABC News.
When Danny arrived at the hospital, he was in cardiac arrest.
The teen wasn’t breathing, suffering from a near-lethal level of blood-alcohol content — a 0.46.
"I saw Danny in the medical ICU at the hospital at Mizzou. And it's just — it's just a bunch of tubes everywhere," his brother, Nick Santulli, said of the scene. "And that's an image that will probably never leave my head.”
As the family struggles to cope with the fact that their brother and son will never be the same again, they vow to continue fighting for justice, wherever it may prevail.
"It makes me stick — sick to my stomach seeing the people involved — that harmed Danny walking around campus, acting like they did nothing wrong," his sister said.
However, they refuse to let their grief and sorrow envelop them, hoping for brighter days ahead.
"We will get through it,” Danny’s father said. “We will get through it."
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Since graduating from Rutgers University, he spends most of his free time gaming or playing a fictional sport. Keep up with his rants about current events on Twitter.