| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"stoney" |
| Date: |
15 Jun 2006 10:46:41 PM |
| Object: |
Cocaine killed prisoner, inquest told |
http://www.cbc.ca/sask/story/sk-cocaine-inquest060615.html
Cocaine killed prisoner, inquest told
Last Updated Jun 15 2006 09:44 AM CDT
CBC News
A massive amount of cocaine killed a woman who was carrying concealed
drugs while she was in police custody, a coroner's inquest heard
Wednesday.
Dona Sanderson, 42, died June 26, 2005. A week earlier she had been
arrested on a drug charge and placed in Saskatoon city police cells.
The inquest has heard Sanderson was carrying a bag of cocaine in her
vagina the night she was arrested by Saskatoon city police and placed in
cells.
Drugs acted fast
Dr. Wendelin Ezzat, the pathologist who performed the autopsy, testified
the massive amount of cocaine would have been absorbed rapidly, because
the vagina has a large surface area and many blood vessels.
Ezzat says the heart would have stopped within very few minutes.
Once the heart stops, the brain is deprived of oxygen and begins to
swell. As a result, Sanderson would have been brain dead in about five
minutes.
Before Sanderson stopped breathing and collapsed in her jail cell, she
did complain of feeling unwell.
There likely wasn't anything doctors could have done to save her given
the circumstances, Ezzat said.
Police suspected cocaine
Some of the questions being asked at the inquest have focused on when
police knew Sanderson was in distress and how quickly they reacted.
The inquest heard on a tape of the 911 call that around 7 a.m. on June
20, Sgt. Byron Hardy phoned for an ambulance.
He said Sanderson had the shakes and might be having a reaction to
cocaine.
Hardy told the inquest he knew about the possibility of Sanderson having
cocaine on her because the commissionaire who was making rounds told
him.
Before making the call, Hardy said he tried talking to Sanderson, who
was pacing in her cell. However, she was mumbling and he didn?t get a
response, he said.
At one point Sanderson had her pants around her buttocks and it looked
as though she was grabbing at something between her vaginal area and
knees, he said.
Hardy said the ambulance was called because Sanderson was lying on her
back, trembling.
Response time questioned
One of the constables on the 911 tape suggested Sanderson was faking her
symptoms and playing a bit of a game.
Nicole Fontaine, a sister of Sanderson, said she wasn?t impressed by the
"ignorant" comments. She also wonders why police didn?t act sooner.
She says her sister was lying down minutes before 7 a.m. and no one was
helping her.
Prior to lying down, Sanderson can be seen in a surveillance video
wandering around her cell, Fontaine said. That's when people should have
asked how they could help her, she said.
/end
--
Fundies and trolls are cordially invited to
shove a wooden cross up their arses and rotate
at a high rate of speed. I trust you'll
be 'blessed' with a plethora of splinters.
.
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