Witness saw woman urge hospital staff to help boyfriend before fatal highrise fall
Justin Andrew Davey, 30, died in fall Wednesday after leaving Grace Hospital in Winnipeg
A Winnipeg man says he saw a woman repeatedly ask Grace Hospital staff for help for her boyfriend, who was high on meth and later died in a fall from a Winnipeg highrise early Wednesday.
Justin Andrew Davey, 30, died in a fall from the 15th floor of the Courts of St. James, an apartment complex near the Grace, early Wednesday morning, shortly after leaving the hospital.
- Man dead after fall from 15th floor of St. James apartment
- Staff knew woman later found frozen and dead outside was anxious to leave ER
His girlfriend, Shannon Paul, told CBC News she warned staff at the hospital that her boyfriend was acting out of character and needed help after he was taken to the emergency room by ambulance.
"Several times she went up to them saying, like, 'He needs help, he's not in a well state mentally,'" said Michael Rathwell, who told CBC News he was in the Grace Hospital ER late Tuesday night and was sitting close to Davey.
"At one point she actually went up to them and said, like, 'He thinks the people here are trying to kill him.'"
The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said Thursday it's unable to comment on what happened to Davey in the Grace ER.
"Without the permission of a deceased patient's designated next of kin, we cannot share any further information," a WRHA spokesperson said in an email to CBC News.
"We have not obtained permission from his next of kin and have reached out to his mother but she has not connected back with us. We continue to encourage her to reach out to us and invite her to have that conversation with staff at Grace hospital."
Davey's mother told CBC News on Wednesday she saw her son high on methamphetamine earlier in the day before his death.
She said no one from the WRHA had contacted her about her son's death.
'They left him sitting in triage'
Paul said as they waited for Davey to be assessed at the ER, her boyfriend became increasingly agitated.
"It was concerning to me because I had just said to them, 'He's not acting the way he normally acts,'" Paul said. "I thought they would maybe take him into a room but nope, they left him sitting in triage."
Paul said after waiting roughly 45 minutes, she and Davey went outside for a cigarette. At that point, she said he began begging her to leave.
Despite efforts to convince him to stay, Paul said she told Davey she would let hospital staff know they were going to go. She said she headed back inside to get help, and that's when Davey took off. "I don't think they handled it well at all," Paul said.
"I had stated he was clearly not in his right mind.… I believe he should have been sat in a room where he wouldn't have been able to leave."
Staff 'very dismissive': witness
Rathwell said after Paul came into the emergency room to tell staff her boyfriend had taken off, no one came outside to help look for him.
"They [were] just very dismissive of everything that was going on," he said.
Paul said she immediately phoned 911 again to alert them that her boyfriend had left the hospital, and she was worried about his safety and mental state. She headed straight back to the Portage Avenue motel where they were living with the hopes of finding Davey there.
A short time later, two officers arrived at her door to deliver the tragic news that Davey had been found dead outside of the Courts of St. James. He had fallen 15 stories to his death.
"When they told me I went into shock," Paul said.
It's still not clear how Davey was able to get into the building and police haven't released many details surrounding the circumstances of the fall. Police are calling the death an accident, and were at the apartment building Wednesday investigating the death and talking with staff in the apartment's security office.
'He was a kind person'
Paul commends the Winnipeg Police Service for the respect and compassion they showed both her and Davey. She spent Wednesday going through his clothes and old photos.
"He was just a kind, quiet person who bothered nobody."
Rathwell said he was stunned when he saw a CBC story Wednesday about Davey's death and came forward because he believes health officials and the province need to do more to ensure patients in ERs are taken care of.
"This man should have been helped and because he wasn't, he took off and something worse happened than him being helped right away," he said.
"Somebody somewhere along those lines should have been stepping in through the health system."
In a statement Wednesday, a spokesperson for the WRHA confirmed they are working with police in their investigation of the death.
'No simple solution'
Manitoba Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen wasn't available for an interview, but said in a statement Thursday that his government is taking steps to deal with the province's meth problem.
"The increase of methamphetamine over the past decade is deeply troubling and the impact it is having on our communities is devastating. The issues surrounding addiction are complex and there is no simple solution to a problem that has plagued our province for years," Goertzen said in the statement.
He said the province is working with the Addictions Foundation of Manitoba, and points out that six new mental-health beds have been added at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre for meth addicts in crisis.
This is the second time in less than a month a patient has gone to a Winnipeg hospital high and then ended up dead outside after.
