Lioness actor Mike Heslin’s husband has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against a Las Vegas casino and hotel, accusing the establishment’s staff of failing “to initiate or support efforts that could have saved” the actor’s life.
Heslin died in July 2024 at age 30 after a week-long stay in the hospital following an unexpected cardiac event at Javier’s restaurant, owned by ARIA Resort & Casino.
His husband, Nicolas James Wilson, who goes by the name Scotty Dynamo on social media, announced his death on Instagram at the time, writing: “Michael was young, in perfect health, and the doctors have no explanation for what happened.”
Now, Wilson is suing ARIA Resort & Casino on five counts of wrongful death, loss of consortium, negligence, gross negligence, and negligent hiring, retention, training and supervision, according to court documents obtained by US Magazine.
The lawsuit states that Heslin was dining with two friends at Javier’s when he “collapsed.”
“It was immediately apparent that Michael was suffering from a medical emergency. Michael’s friends immediately started yelling out for help,” it reads. “[They] quickly moved the table back and away to get Michael on the floor — signaling distress that should have prompted immediate intervention.”
It goes on to claim that “over the course of the next several minutes, multiple employees of ARIA and/or JAVIER’S approached the scene of the incident and saw Michael exhibiting obvious signs of a medical emergency.”
However, those employees “stood by, took no immediate lifesaving action, and failed to initiate or support efforts that could have saved Michael’s life,” the suit alleges.
They “failed to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in a timely manner,” the complaint says. It adds that a woman then stepped in to perform CPR on Heslin before an employee “forcefully removed” her, “preventing her from continuing compressions on Michael and interrupting this lifesaving measure.”
Wilson is accusing ARIA of failing to “keep a stock and inventory of emergency response equipment” and “activate a known and expected emergency response protocol, including summoning trained personnel or securing and deploying an automated external defibrillator (AED), which was believed to be available on site.”
He is seeking $30,000 in damages. The Independent has reached out to ARIA for comment.
Heslin, whose last acting credit was in Lifetime Channel’s 2023 romcom The Holiday Proposal Plan, was perhaps best known for his role of Polo in two episodes of Taylor Sheridan’s thriller Special Ops: Lioness, which also starred Zoe Saldaña and Nicole Kidman.
