Woman found unresponsive under pile of blankets in Winnipeg bus shelter
'We're an outreach team and we found what we found and did everything we could': Street Links director
Street outreach workers found an unresponsive woman on the floor of a Winnipeg Transit shelter on Monday, as a wave of colder temperatures started hitting the city.
"It's quite soul destroying for an outreach team to find a body and do chest compressions," said Marion Willis, executive director of St. Boniface Street Links, an organization that helps connect people with housing, mental health and addictions resources.
"We're an outreach team and we found what we found and did everything we could."
The woman was rushed to hospital but Willis believes she was already dead, saying it appeared the woman had been there for some time.
A spokesperson for the City of Winnipeg said the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service was called to the bus shelter at the corner of Tache Avenue and Goulet Street — a block from St. Boniface Hospital — around 1:45 p.m. They found a person in critical condition and took the person to hospital.
Due to privacy issues, no further details are being provided, the spokesperson said in an email. The spokesperson would not confirm the woman was dead, saying they do not receive updates about a patient's condition after care is transferred to a hospital.
The Street Links workers first stopped at the shelter during their morning rounds and spoke with a number of people huddled inside.
When the workers made their rounds again in the afternoon, they noticed the shelter was empty except for a pile of blankets, Willis said.
"They went in the Transit shelter and pulled back the blankets and there was a person lying face down."
They turned her over and administered three shots of Narcan, a medication used to counter decreased breathing in opioid overdoses. There was drug paraphernalia in the Transit shelter, but it wasn't clear if the woman had been using, Willis said.
They called 911 and did chest compressions until emergency crews showed up.
"But it was too late for this person," she said.
The Winnipeg Police Service said officers were not called, likely because it was not a criminal situation.
Willis said the woman was not someone the Street Links outreach workers knew.
"At this time of year, just as soon as the weather starts to get colder, there's a steady migration of people who are living unsheltered crossing over [the river from downtown]."
They choose to cross the river into St. Boniface, as well as other neighbourhoods, because they feel safer than being in the inner city, Willis said.
"They're not living in Transit shelters but they take up space seeking out warmth. They build encampments. They spend the night in ATM vestibules — any place that they could find shelter," she said.
For many, no amount of coaxing can persuade them to go to an established shelter, Willis said.
"If you've moved over to this side of the river because you're trying to escape the chaos of the inner city, then you really don't want to be taken back to that," she said.
"But people can't live outside. If you live outside, there's a pretty good chance you're not going to make it through the winter. Sadly, that was certainly the case for this person."
The temperature on Monday afternoon in Winnipeg was about –22 C, with a wind chill of –31, and fell through the day.
Willis said the city responded quickly following the discovery of the woman and opened a makeshift warming shelter in a municipally owned building on St. Mary's Road.
"Our team has been all night making sure there weren't people in Transit shelters and bringing them into a nice warm space being provided for us and that we'll continue to use throughout the extreme weather," she said, adding the outreach workers who found the woman are OK but "deeply saddened that it has to be this way."
"It's unfortunate it takes a death before any focus on the need for infrastructure on this side of the Red River."
'I would have froze to death out there'
Cory Campbell was among those who spent the night in the shelter.
Homeless for eight years, Campbell says he would have slept in a tent at an outdoor encampment near the Norwood Bridge if not for the temporary warming shelter.
"The weather was a little bit too cold for comfort, and if I didn't there would be chances that I would have froze to death out there," he said.
Campbell says the encampments aren't warm enough when the weather gets as cold as it did Tuesday and into Wednesday.
"Tents start to freeze. They start to crack and it gets kind of dangerous out there for us," he said. "Sometimes when weather's like this, there's no amount of blankets that can keep you warm."
He believes Winnipeg should open up more city-owned buildings that are not being used to help those who are homeless when temperatures plunge.
Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham said Wednesday it took about six hours from start to finish to get the shelter open.
He wants the city to be able to do even more for those who are homeless.
"We are looking at further changes, more permanent changes to our extreme weather policy to be put in place in the coming weeks," Gillingham said.
Asked about a permanent warming shelter, the mayor said there are no immediate plans to build one. He did, however, give his condolences to the family of the woman found in the Transit shelter.
"These are the very tragedies that we want to avoid," he said. "This is what we are trying to make sure doesn't happen."
WATCH | Woman found unresponsive under pile of blankets in Winnipeg bus shelter:
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With files from Meaghan Ketcheson, Marcy Markusa and Alana Cole