The mom of Sidney McIntyre-Starko, the 18-year-old who died of a fentanyl overdose in a College of Victoria dorm room final 12 months, gave heart-wrenching and pointed testimony on day one of many coroner’s inquest into her daughter’s demise.
Dr. Caroline McIntyre stated the college “lied” and put out a “utterly false” timeline concerning the evening her daughter died in January 2024.
McIntyre, an emergency room doctor, stated regardless of claiming in any other case, the college by no means contacted Royal Jubilee Hospital to determine Sidney after she was taken there by ambulance.
As a substitute, her daughter was listed as an unidentified particular person in the course of the time emergency room workers had been making an attempt to save lots of her life.
“I did not make it there,” stated McIntyre. “She was unidentified, alone, and on a ventilator.”
McIntyre stated she gave timestamped proof to the director of campus safety with a view to appropriate the file of response put out by the college.
“This inquest is generally being held as a result of my daughter was left for quarter-hour to die whereas campus safety sat there with Narcan,” she stated.
The dad and mom of McIntyre-Starko say her demise might have been averted had campus safety acted extra rapidly. (SidneyShouldBeHere.ca)
McIntyre’s testimony was interrupted plenty of instances by presiding coroner Larry Marzinzik, who at one level requested her and her authorized counsel to keep away from hypothesis.
An unbiased report launched earlier this month discovered that McIntyre-Starko “seemingly wouldn’t have died” if the college’s response had been higher.
It stated responding safety officers didn’t determine the overdose and took too lengthy to manage nasal naloxone to reverse the poisonous drug.
In line with the report, McIntyre-Starko had by no means tried unregulated road medicine earlier than the evening she and two fellow first-year college students snorted a powder containing a mixture of cocaine and fentanyl.
The opposite two college students additionally overdosed alongside McIntyre-Starko however had been revived. Each testified on day one of many inquest. Their names are protected by a publication ban.
One of many college students recognized a photograph of a vial of gray powdery substance proven as an exhibit because the drug they took.
She stated she and Sidney discovered the vial on the backside of a field of coolers they’d been given and determined to take the medicine collectively the next day. She stated she tried to Google what the drug was, and it got here up heroin or opioids.
“There wasn’t a lot dialogue. It was like, yeah, let’s do it,” she stated. “We had been like, it might probably’t be something unhealthy. That was the thought course of.”
McIntyre instructed the inquest that her job as an emergency room doctor meant that Sidney was “properly knowledgeable” concerning the poisonous drug disaster.
She stated looking back, she needs she had talked to her daughter extra instantly about drug safeguarding and Narcan.
“It is my life sentence, proper? Like, what else might I’ve achieved for my baby?”
The inquest was known as final 12 months after information of McIntrye-Starko’s demise sparked a public outcry.
McIntyre instructed coroner’s court docket that her daughter was considered one of over 2,200 individuals who died from poisonous medicine final 12 months in B.C.
“Twenty teenagers died (of poisonous medicine) final 12 months, 24 the 12 months earlier than, 26 the 12 months earlier than that. We have not achieved inquests for them and we in all probability ought to,” she stated.
In response to a juror’s query, McIntyre defined {that a} fentanyl overdose will cease an individual from respiratory. She stated within the absence of Narcan, giving an overdose sufferer synthetic respiration — also called mouth-to-mouth or CPR chest compressions — will preserve somebody alive by forcing oxygen into their lungs.
She stated an individual who’s not respiratory will undergo mind harm after about 4 minutes, with deadly coronary heart harm occurring quickly after.
The inquest will hear testimony from 36 witnesses over 10 days.
Coroners’ inquests don’t assign blame however are public inquiries that goal to find out the circumstances surrounding a demise.
On the conclusion of testimony, the five-person coroner’s jury will make non-binding suggestions to stop related deaths sooner or later.
