'A weight has been lifted': Family reacts to recommendations coming out of teen's death inquest

The family of a teen who overdosed inside his cell says they are pleased there could soon be better medical training and more nurses working at Kilburn Hall.

This week, the inquest into the teen's death heard that he smuggled crystal meth into the jail. A youth worker described, in harrowing detail, watching a teenager suffer a fatal overdose while begging for an ambulance.

No one called an ambulance until the teen was laying on the floor of his cell, frothing at the mouth.

Ammy Murray, the family's lawyer, said they are optimistic as the jury recommended better training and more nurses for the facility as well as the creation of an emergency response plan.

She said the family is also relieved because their son's story is now being told. 

"It's been very difficult. There's been a lot of anger, a lot of sadness, there's been a lot of frustration. But they told me just before we came out here it's like a weight has been lifted, now everyone knows," said Murray.  

Other jury suggestions include the installation of more body scanners, to detect if someone is smuggling drugs and better policies and policy training. 

The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named because of provisions in the Youth Criminal Justice Act, had been arrested on July 25, 2015 for allegedly breaching a community supervision order.

He died of an overdose five days later, on July 30.

Meth overdose symptoms missed, teen suffered

In the teen's case, Murray says, supervisors were instructed to look for signs of an opioid overdose—blue lips, finger tips, slowed breathing — signs that are not present when someone is overdosing from crystal meth. 

"Because he wasn't experiencing either symptoms of a total heart failure of failure or an opioid overdose, it was determined he was obviously not fine but not in need of immediate medical attention," she said. 

A youth worker who was with the teen that night, Angela Silva, testified the teen was flailing on the floor, screaming for an ambulance for a least an hour before he died. 

She said she asked her supervisors to call an ambulance at least eight times. She testified she did not go against the orders of her supervisors and call 911 because she could have been fired for insubordination. 

The family had their own recommendations including the distribution of activated charcoal, which can be used to counteract the effects of a meth overdose. They also wanted a detox facility at Kilburn Hall and stated that any family of an inmate who is receiving one-on-one care should be notified. 

Drew Wilby, a spokesperson from the Ministry of Justice, said the government will consider the recommendations and will work to make sure similar deaths are prevented in the future. 

"I think the recommendations are well thought out, they are very solid recommendations and obviously we will take them, we'll take a look a them and see what we can implement, what we may have to put some more thought into and what's going to [be] a bit of budget to do that," he said. 

Supervisor says he was 'comfortable' with the decisions made that night 

Dale Larocque was one of two supervisors working at Kilburn Hall the night the teen died there.

Larocque described the teen as agitated and aggressive, but said that based on the advice of a nurse he spoke to by phone, he thought the teen was coming off drugs, not overdosing.

"I was very comfortable about how we went about it and the decisions that were made," Larocque told the coroner's inquest into the teen's death Thursday.

"Based on what he was presenting to me and what we knew, I had no indication that we had to take him to the hospital."

Nurse said to watch for blue lips, slurred speech 

Larocque and the supervisor who took over his shift, Robert Johnson, both said the nurse advised watching for signs of an overdose; like blue fingertips or lips and slurred speech. Larocque said the teen did not exhibit any of those signs. 

He also said part of the reason he didn't call an ambulance was because the teen wouldn't tell him what drugs he took. The teen also had a history of "manipulating staff" to get to the hospital, Larocque testified.

When Johnson took over the supervisory role around 11 p.m. that night, he said some staff, including youth worker Angela Silva, expressed concern that the teen had taken meth and was overdosing.

But Johnson, who also testified at the inquiry Thursday, said that at shift hand-off, Larocque "at the time did not belive that [the teen] took crystal meth."

Johnson said he eventually went down to the teen's cell at the urging of other staff. He found the teen lying on the floor  frothing at the mouth, and with his eyes glazed over.

That's when he called 911.

The inquest heard by the time the paramedics arrived and he was taken to the ambulance, he had no pulse.