As a coroner’s inquest begins into the death of Regis Korchinski-Paquet, her family is remembering her and the moments that led up to her death when she fell from a highrise balcony while police were in her home in May 2020.
Korchinski-Paquet, a woman of Ukrainian, Black and Indigenous ancestry, died on May 27, 2020 after police responded to calls about a family dispute at the apartment. She was 29.
“It’s been a nightmare and I will never forgive myself for Regis losing her life,” said Claudette Clayton-Korchinski, Regis’ mother. “I will always blame myself because if I didn’t make that phone call, I believe my child would still be here.”
Claudette told Global News she called police when her daughter and son got into an argument. She asked to have officers take Regis to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). Korchinski-Paquet had been suffering from seizures due to epilepsy.
Korchinski-Paquet’s death cast a spotlight on how police interact with people experiencing mental health crises.
Ontario’s police watchdog investigated the case and eventually cleared Toronto police of wrongdoing in Korchinski-Paquet’s death.
The Special Investigations Unit found the woman fell as she was trying to move from her apartment balcony to an adjacent one.
The inquest was announced earlier this year and is slated to last 14 days, with 15 witnesses expected to take the stand.
The inquest jury does not assign criminal responsibility but may result in recommendations aimed at preventing similar deaths in the future. The chief coroner’s office does not have the authority to impose the recommendations, however.
Korchinski-Paquet’s father, Peter Korchinski, says he’s waiting to see the results of the inquest.
“I would like the truth to come out, obviously, the whole truth,” he said. “I want it very transparent.
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“It’s very difficult not having her around anymore.”
The inquest heard Tuesday that Korchinski-Paquet had experienced two seizures the morning of May 27, 2020, hours before police were called in the late afternoon over a “rapidly developing and violent family disturbance that involved knives,” coroner’s counsel said.
Korchinski-Paquet herself had made three of the five calls to police, and a neurologist who heard the recordings told the inquest she sounded distressed and repetitive, as though she couldn’t remember her previous calls.
“Today, we begin this inquest hoping to get answers, understand what happened and help ensure that people experiencing a crisis receive a safe and compassionate response from first responders,” her family said in a statement read to jurors.
“Regis brought people together across our city. Let’s take this opportunity to work towards meaningful change for the years to come.”
Police and paramedics were called on multiple occasions in the years preceding Korchinski-Paquet’s death, some of them related to her seizures and others including mentions of her seizures, according to an agreed narrative read at the inquest.
Medical records showed her seizures were often followed by symptoms such as “confusion, irritability, physically and verbally abusive behaviour and episodic amnesia,” the inquest heard.
Dr. Julien Hébert, a neurologist specializing in epilepsy who reviewed Korchinski-Paquet’s records for the inquest, testified that on several of those occasions, she showed patterns of behaviour in keeping with postictal delirium or psychosis, both mental states that can occur after seizures.
Postictal psychosis is marked by a disconnect from reality, while postictal delirium — the more common of the two — involves an altered state of awareness and confusion, though it can also include a disconnect from reality, he said.
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In one incident in October 2017, an ambulance was called for Korchinski-Paquet after she appeared confused on a public transit bus, he said. She ended up walking out of the ambulance and into oncoming traffic, “suggesting that she had impairment in her appreciation of her environment and her awareness as well as her judgment,” the neurologist said.
Another incident in September 2019 “had several echoes of the situation that occurred on the day that Regis passed away,” Hébert said, including reports that she was being aggressive with her family and that a knife was involved. She had missed her anti-seizure medication that day, and even missing one dose can be enough to trigger a seizure, he said.
Hébert suggested several possible recommendations jurors could make, including increasing awareness of epilepsy and its potential effects.
The inquest’s scope includes how police and first responders are informed about epilepsy and how to ensure safety when a person’s behaviour may be influenced by postictal delirium, inquest counsel Roger Shallow said.
The inquest will not look into general mental health challenges or psychiatric care, however, or the investigations by various police watchdogs into the case, he said.
Korchinski-Paquet’s death was “sudden and profoundly tragic” and no matter what the jury concludes, her family has been left to grapple with a loss no one should experience, Shallow said.
“Regis Paquet was not an incident. She was not a file number. She was not simply the subject of an (Special Investigations Unit) investigation or coroner’s inquest,” he said in his opening remarks.
“She was a daughter, a sister, an auntie, a member of a family, and a young woman whose life ended in circumstances that have had a profound impact on many people.”
The family filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit in 2022 in the Ontario Court of Justice against the provincial government, City of Toronto, Toronto Community Housing Corporation, the head of Ontario’s police watchdog, and several police officers. It alleges her relatives suffered severe emotional distress after they were provided with “misleading information” at the time of her death.
On the anniversary of her death this year, Korchinski-Paquet’s parents joined advocates in calling for the recommendations issued in coroner’s inquests to be binding and implemented within a reasonable timeframe.
—with files from Global News’ Caryn Lieberman and The Canadian Press
In 2022 the family (minus the daughter of course) launched a multi million dollar lawsuit suing everyone they can think of to gain financially on the loss of a family member stating they had received misleading information on the facts leading up to the death..the mother and brother were there and saw it all. They then told the media afterwards the police threw the young lady off the balconey. Lies. I hope the family lawsuit failed as they contributed to this disaster and false narrative afterwards. Sheesh.
The truth is straight forward. The whole family was on welfare and could not resolve simple issues among themselves, always involving the police or social agencies to fx their issues. Mom called the police as son and daughter ( both adults) were fighting over video games (again). The daughter fearing she was going to be taken to hospital (again) under the MHA fled to the balcony and sadly fell to her death climbing from balconey to balconey. It didn’t help when the family lied and said the police threw her off the balconey.