DENVER — A Colorado Springs man fell from a fourth-floor hotel window during an unsupervised psilocybin therapy session last year after his counselor served him psilocybin tea and then left him alone, the man alleged in a lawsuit filed this week.

Jacob Ramirez survived the fall but spent nearly two months hospitalized with serious injuries to his head and chest after the May 16, 2025, incident at the Spark by Hilton Hotel on Commerce Center Drive in Colorado Springs, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in El Paso County District Court.

He is seeking damages from the counselor, Rachel McGuire, as well as from her husband, Sheldon McGuire, and from the two therapy companies they run, A Sparrow’s Way and Restoration Counseling. Rachel McGuire could not be reached for comment Thursday and a message left with Sheldon McGuire was not immediately returned.

Ramirez was a longtime patient of Sheldon McGuire before the therapist referred Ramirez to his wife for psilocybin-assisted treatment in late 2024, according to the complaint.

Rachel McGuire, a licensed professional counselor, gave Ramirez psilocybin, or “magic mushrooms,” in February 2025 so that he “could begin microdosing at home,” according to the lawsuit. In March 2025, Ramirez met with Rachel McGuire in her office for a larger dose of psilocybin, which he took while under her supervision, according to the lawsuit.

In May 2025, Ramirez visited the Spark by Hilton Hotel for another session. Rachel McGuire checked into a room at the hotel just before 3:30 p.m., according to the lawsuit, and Ramirez arrived around 3:45 p.m. Rachel McGuire provided Ramirez with psilocybin tea, according to the complaint. She left the hotel at 5:14 p.m. and drove away, leaving Ramirez alone.

At about 6:34 p.m., Ramirez fell from the fourth-story hotel window and landed on concrete below, according to the Colorado Springs Police Department. A bystander started CPR on Ramirez before first responders arrived.

Investigators found “half a sliding window missing from the window frame” of the room Ramirez had been in, according to the civil complaint. Colorado Springs police conducted an investigation after Ramirez’s fall but did not recommend any criminal charges, spokesman Ira Cronin said.

Ramirez’s attorney, Jared Mazzei, said Thursday that Ramirez does not remember anything about how he fell from the window, but said there was no indication the man was trying to die by suicide.

“I think it clearly lends itself to somebody who is not used to taking these types of medications being left alone and freaking out,” Mazzei said of the fall.

Ramirez suffered blunt force trauma to his head and significant injuries to his chest and lungs, according to the complaint. His medical bills have topped $2 million and he experiences daily pain, Mazzei said.

The complaint seeks damages for medical and direct negligence against Rachel McGuire, as well as against her husband for referring Ramirez to his wife even though she was not licensed to provide psilocybin-assisted therapy.

“It’s two parts,” Mazzei said. “There is whether she was even licensed, which she wasn’t — and the other part is did she even, at the very least, follow the procedures that you learn when you are obtaining your license, one of them being to actually stay with the patient the entire time, for this exact reason.”

Rachel McGuire is a licensed professional counselor in Colorado, but is not licensed as a natural medicine clinical facilitator, the license required to professionally administer psilocybin to paying therapy clients in Colorado, state records show.

However, state law also allows for personal use and sharing between individuals, and allows one person to pay another for “bona fide harm reduction services” — including facilitation of a psilocybin session — under that personal use provision, as long as the payment is not made for the psilocybin itself.

The idea behind the personal use carve-out was to make the natural medicine as widely available as possible, but it also created a gray area for how psilocybin could be used, said Harrison Tillou, office administrator at The Center Origin, the first healing center licensed in Colorado.

He noted that Ramirez’s fall happened in May 2025, just before the first psilocybin sessions began at state-licensed healing centers in June 2025.

“This was right when the doors were starting to be opened, so there was a lot of gray area there, especially on the personal use side,” he said, noting he could not say whether or not McGuire was operating legally. “…That gray area is where we saw potential for abuse, and potential for the medicine not to be practiced in a professional manner. We here at the Center really emphasize the professional aspect of this medicine.”

Licensed facilitators can conduct psilocybin sessions inside or outside of a licensed facility, as long as the location is within Colorado, the facilitator considers and communicates about the risks of doing the session at the outside location and a number of other conditions are met, said Sarah Werner, a spokeswoman for Colorado’s Department of Regulatory Agencies.

Clients at The Center Origin are never left alone during psilocybin sessions, Tillou said, and staff spend significant time ensuring clients are safe and feel supported both before and during sessions.

“We have many different scaffoldings to make sure that nothing like this would ever happen within a licensed healing center,” Tillou said.

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Denver Post staff writer Tiney Ricciardi contributed to this report.

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