The family of late Star Trek actor Nichelle Nichols has succeeded in its wrongful death lawsuit against the hospital and doctor that treated the 89-year-old in her final days.
Nichols, who played Uhura in the 1960s series, died on July 30, 2022 from heart failure after being treated at Gila Regional Medical Center in New Mexico. A medical negligence compliant was filed against the medical center the following year and after three years of hearings followed by a jury trial, the case ended with a special verdict on Thursday (June 4).
During the trial’s conclusion, Gila Regional was found 40 percent negligent, while Nichols' doctor, Dr. Tsering Sherpa, was found 60 percent negligent. The family has been awarded $13 million in damages.
In 2025, ABC's Albuquerque, New Mexico outlet KOAT reported that Nichols was admitted to the hospital for sudden heart problems and was prematurely discharged after receiving lab results that signaled acute heart failure. The family’s attorney, Lisa Curtis, told KOAT that "Gila Regional Medical Center didn't do cardiac work on her. Instead, they discharged her home. She died seven hours later."
The lawsuit claimed that the medical center was not equipped with licensed providers, took Nichols to an observational unit before she went home and didn’t have the proper equipment to transfer her to Las Cruces.
Curtis also described Nichols' son, Kyle Johnson, as being "horrified" about the condition his mother was in.
"Kyle was really upset with the idea that it could be anyone's mom. He never used his mom's celebrity to get attention for her," the attorney said. "We have to have access to health care, but we have to have access to quality health care. We can't allow these big corporations to come in and take money out of our state and give us crappy health care. It's wrong."
