Family members of an aboriginal man who died in a Vancouver park on one of the hottest days of the year are expected to call for a coroner's inquest at a press conference Thursday.
Curtis Brick died on July 29 in a busy park. His death has raised questions and concerns about the attitude toward homeless people in the city.
"We will be calling for a coroner's inquiry," Bob Chamberlin of the B.C. Union of Indian Chiefs said yesterday at a rally held to honour Mr. Brick. "There are just too many differences in the stories we've been told, and we need to have some answers."
Mr. Brick, an aboriginal man in his 40s, had spent the day in the hot sun in Grandview Park on East Vancouver's bustling Commercial Drive, just steps away from a water park where children played under the watchful eyes of their parents. But no one appeared to notice him, other than Eric Schweig, who saw Mr. Brick lying on the grass at around 9 a.m. as he passed through the park, and then again, late in the afternoon.
Mr. Schweig, an outreach worker from Winnipeg, said yesterday at the rally that he called a friend and a local agency that works with alcoholics because Mr. Brick seemed intoxicated. The friend, Jenifer Brousseau, called 911 because Mr. Brick was having convulsions and appeared to be close to death. By that time, curious onlookers had noticed the fuss, which included Ms. Brousseau's two children running back and forth to the nearby water fountain to wet towels, which they held to Mr. Brick's face and arms, she said.
When emergency vehicles arrived, one crew member nudged Mr. Brick with his foot and told him to get up, Ms. Brousseau said. Mr. Schweig said yesterday that another emergency worker also made an offhand comment, along the lines of "that's what you get for drinking Lysol" after Mr. Schweig told the crew that the man had drunk the substance.
Michael Sanderson, executive director of B.C. Ambulance Service for the Lower Mainland, said the agency has reviewed its dispatch tapes for the call.
Those tapes, and reviews with team members involved, show the agency received only one call about a man in Grandview Park, and that an ambulance was on the scene between 12 and 13 minutes later, he said.
Paramedics spent another 12 minutes on the scene and took Mr. Brick to the hospital within another eight minutes, where he was promptly admitted, Mr. Sanderson said. It is "extremely unfortunate" that Mr. Brick spent hours in the park without people realizing that he was at risk of dying, Mr. Sanderson said.
"Unfortunately, an individual in distress may not appear that way to passersby," Mr. Sanderson said. Asked about reports that paramedics made insulting comments on the scene, Mr. Sanderson said ambulance personnel may have appeared rushed or insensitive, but would have been focused on Mr. Brick's medical needs.
Mr. Brick's death has raised uncomfortable echoes of the death of another aboriginal man more than a decade ago.
Frank Paul, a Mi'kmaq from New Brunswick, died in Vancouver in December, 1998, of hypothermia after being dragged out of a police drunk tank and left propped against an alley wall on a cold December night.
A public inquiry into Mr. Paul's death, launched in 2007, this year found serious flaws in two police investigations and made several recommendations, including that aboriginal groups and health care agencies should work together on a comprehensive program to respond to the needs of homeless chronic alcoholics.
Wendy Stueck