HONOLULU -- Baby Michael was born with a hole in his heart. He was flown to Hawaii for treatment at Kapiolani Hospital, but he never made it there.

The infant, his mother and a nurse were first off the Hawaiian airplane but they were detained in a locked room and it was during that time that baby had trouble breathing.

"About 10 minutes maximum after the plane landed, the baby should’ve been on his way to Kapiolani," attorney Rick Fried said. “This timeline shows, basically, he didn’t leave an ambulance at 6:48, which is over an hour.”

Fried said he doesn’t understand why they were delayed unnecessarily when all the paperwork was in order. He is looking into information about possible short staffing at the airport.

"There was never a decent explanation for what was the holdup. It may go back to the understaffing, according to an e-mail that I got in 2005,” Fried said.

It’s not clear if airport personnel knew the baby required immediate attention since there had been no request to have an ambulance standing by when the plane landed.

Fried said the belief was the child would have been fine breathing on his own for about an hour.

“There was really no reason for an ambulance to be there with oxygen. I tried to get an answer and why they did and why they didn’t.

It probably would have been nice but it probably wouldn’t have changed things because they wouldn’t have gotten there in the first place.

Fried said he offered to settle the case in April but got no reply from the government.

Michael was just 15 days old when he died. His mother has since returned to Samoa. She said she hopes to prevent this from happening to another family.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection issued a statement saying it grieves with the Futi family and community over the loss. It said it is cooperating with the police in the investigation but declined to comment further because of the lawsuit.