Florida pastor sues OpenAI after ChatGPT dismissed his symptoms for six weeks before a near-fatal pulmonary embolism

Scott Winters was mid-sermon connected June 8, 2025 erstwhile the country began to rotation — severely capable that helium had to halt the service. Church unit called paramedics, who examined him and said helium appeared stable.

When helium got backmost home, helium opened ChatGPT to explicate the episode. ChatGPT told him to "take it easy" and said his symptoms would amended implicit time, according to the ailment filed connected his behalf July 22 successful San Francisco County Superior Court.

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Unfortunately, connected July 13, 2025, helium was rushed to an intensive attraction portion with humor clots successful some lungs.

Winters, 55, a erstwhile pastor and existent property nonrecreational who lives successful Florida, is suing OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman connected 8 causes of action, including strict merchandise liability, negligence and violations of California's Unfair Competition Law. Tech Justice Law, the Social Media Victims Law Center and Temple University's Institute for Law, Innovation & Technology filed it jointly.

He says helium had symptoms of a pulmonary embolism for six weeks that the chatbot attributed to thing else.

His lawsuit matters beyond his ain losses, due to the fact that hundreds of millions of radical enactment wellness questions to the aforesaid merchandise each week — and astir of them person ne'er checked what protections travel with the answers.

What the filing describes — and what it outgo Winters

Winters had been unwell since 2022 and was diagnosed with tiny intestinal bacterial overgrowth and chronic prostatitis successful 2024. He began utilizing ChatGPT successful June 2024 for mean questions astir geography, authorities and biblical texts. He utilized the escaped mentation of ChatGPT for astir of the play described successful the complaint. He bought a paid ChatGPT Plus subscription successful June 2025, the period earlier his collapse.

By March 2025 the chatbot was penning him supplement dosing schedules. By June it had diagnosed him with dysautonomia and told him to enactment "recliner-bound."

In precocious June it told him helium was "nowhere adjacent the number oregon depth" that leads to semipermanent bedbound scenarios, and that his recliner-based betterment was buying his future. His lawyers work that speech arsenic mounting a threshold of 8 to 10 much episodes earlier his information would number arsenic serious. He stayed disconnected his feet.