The fourth day of Shilo Sanders’ bankruptcy trial took an unexpected turn on Thursday in Denver. The case had already produced conflicting accounts of a 2015 altercation, testimony from Sanders, and questions about the evidence surrounding the incident. Then the courtroom proceedings were interrupted by a medical emergency involving the man seeking to keep Sanders responsible for an $11.89 million judgment.

John Darjean, the former school security guard at the center of the case, collapsed after spending more than two hours testifying. According to USA Today, Darjean was in pain when he collapsed and was taken from the courthouse to a hospital by ambulance. He was released later that day but did not return to court. The moment came after Darjean had spent much of the day discussing the injuries he says resulted from his encounter with Sanders in 2015.

Darjean was a security guard at Prime Prep Academy in Dallas when the incident occurred on Sept. 17, 2015. Shilo Sanders was 15 at the time. Darjean has said the confrontation began when he tried to take Sanders’ phone and escalated into a physical altercation. The civil case ended in 2022 with an $11.89 million default judgment against Sanders after he did not appear in court for the trial.

That ruling is now a major part of Sanders’ bankruptcy case. He filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2023, but the filing does not automatically eliminate the $11.89 million judgment. Darjean is challenging the bankruptcy filing, arguing that the judgment stems from a “willful and malicious injury.” If the court agrees, bankruptcy law could prevent Sanders from having that debt discharged.

Now, the court has been examining what happened between the two men and whether Sanders’ actions meet the legal standard required to prevent the judgment from being discharged. Shilo Sanders has given a very different account.

He testified earlier in the trial that Darjean attacked him and choked him. Shilo said he blacked out during the confrontation and maintained that he did not assault Darjean. He also pointed to marks on his body that he says support his version of what happened. Darjean’s testimony has gone in the opposite direction.

John Darjean and Shilo’s legal team presented conflicting testimonies

Before he collapsed, Sanders’ attorney, Victor Vital, implied that Darjean’s health issues were already there before the Shilo’s alleged incident. That also included a potential diagnosis of degenerative disc disease. “Did you possibly run into a wall playing baseball, and it caused the degenerative disc disease?” Vital asked Darjean, who was a former minor league baseball player, as reported by USA Today.

Before the questions raised by Shilo’s attorney, Darjean’s attorneys played a pre-recorded video from doctor Michael Phillips at trial. He addressed the diagnosis. “If someone’s faking, they don’t generally get multilevel cervical spine surgery,” Phillips said in the video, as reported by USA Today. “And they don’t have neuropathic pain after, with neuropathic conditions.”

A school administrator who witnessed part of the confrontation told the court that she saw Darjean with his hands around Sanders’ neck. Later, Darjean’s lawyer introduced a recording of a phone conversation between the administrator and Sanders’ mother, Pilar Sanders, from the day of the incident. On the call, Pilar specifically asked the administrator if she had actually seen Darjean’s hands around Shilo’s neck.

The administrator responded that she had not seen that part. That exchange allowed Darjean’s legal team to challenge testimony that had supported Sanders’ version of events. Police and medical records were also introduced. According to evidence described in court, Darjean was taken to a hospital following the 2015 incident.

Several days later, an ambulance was called after he was found in distress at home. Darjean has testified about severe pain and subsequent medical treatment, including spinal surgery. Then, after more than two hours on the witness stand on Thursday, Darjean’s own body became the reason proceedings had to stop.

There was no immediate indication that the incident would change the legal questions before Judge Michael Romero, but Darjean did not return to the courthouse that day.