It’s been three years since a disabled Brampton teen died at a Brantford school for the blind, and the lawyer for his family says a coroner’s inquest into his death needs to get underway.
In a media conference on Tuesday, Saron Gebresellassi said Samuel Brown’s family has waited far too long for answers about why he died at the W. Ross MacDonald School for the Blind in February 2018.
Brown, who was deaf and blind, was 18 years old and allegedly in good health when he left his parents’ home the Sunday he returned to the provincially-run school in Brantford.
According to documents shared with Global News by Gebresellassi on behalf of Andrea and Gladstone Brown, the teen began to feel unwell over the next few days, with staff at the school calling his parents on Thursday evening to let them know he was not feeling well and had not eaten dinner.
Brown’s breathing “sounded congested” that evening, according to Dr. June Rogers, executive director of the provincial and demonstration schools branch of the Ministry of Education, but staff continued to check on him at 30-minute intervals overnight.
When staff attempted to wake him at 6 a.m. on Feb. 9, 2018, Brown was unresponsive and despite calling 911 and several attempts to perform CPR, he was pronounced dead that morning.
Last May, the provincial coroner’s office confirmed that it would hold an inquest into Brown’s death, although no dates or timelines were outlined at that point.
Since then, Gebresellassi said Brown’s family has yet to hear when the inquest might be able to get underway, despite more details emerging surrounding the teen’s death — including an ambulance report that suggests his death was the result of asphyxiation.
“The ambulance call report demonstrates that he essentially choked on his own vomit,” said Gebresellassi. “And that would be not terminal or fatal … for other people without a disability, but for someone who does not have mobility, who’s so vulnerable, who depends on adults to monitor him, it will be terminal.”
Autopsy reports provided by Gebresellassi to Global News show conflicting conclusions about how Brown died.
The preliminary coroner’s report stated that Brown died as the result of “natural causes”, while an autopsy requested by the family determined that pneumonia was the cause of his death.
Gebresellassi said three years is too long for the Browns to wait for answers in their son’s death, comparing that length of time to the limit that exists for criminal trials going before the Supreme Court.
“After 30 months, a delay would be considered unconstitutional, in the criminal law context. This isn’t a criminal law case, but it gives you some perspective in terms of the question of how long is too long.”
She said the family is committed to the judicial process and is urging the province to set dates in the coroner’s inquest.
Dr. David Cameron, the regional supervising coroner for inquests, told Global News that he understands the family’s desire to see Brown’s case go forward but cited the COVID-19 pandemic as having contributed to quite a “backlog” in cases.
Despite that backlog, he said the goal is to have the inquest into Brown’s death completed before the end of 2021.
The W. Ross MacDonald School for the Blind has made headlines in the past for previous controversies regarding the treatment of its students.
A class-action lawsuit alleged students attending the school between 1951 and 2012 were subjected to psychological degradation, physical violence, and sexual abuse.
The suit claimed staff members often resorted to violence, such as forcing students to drink from urinals and jumping on the backs of those as young as six years old.
The statement of claim also alleged staff preyed upon the visual impairments of students, sneaking up on them during private conversations and spinning students around to deliberately disorient them.
The plaintiffs settled the suit with the Ontario government for $8 million the day before a trial in the case was due to get underway.
— With files from Kamil Karamali and The Canadian Press