The 911 call placed by a dorm-mate as University of Victoria student Sidney McIntyre-Starko was suffering a fatal fentanyl overdose was played for the jury on day two of the coroner’s inquest into the 18-year-old’s death.
Known only as “Student 2,” the dorm-mate, McIntyre-Starko and another female, “Student 3”, had all snorted what was later determined to be a mix of cocaine and fentanyl in a bathroom of UVic’s Sir Arthur Currie student residence.
Within minutes of ingesting the drugs, McIntyre-Starko and Student 3 both passed out, started having seizures and started turning blue, according to testimony.
The names of Student 2 and Student 3 are under a publication ban.
The call to 911 runs almost 16 minutes. Confusion over the name and location of the dorm takes up the first 3 ½ minutes of the recording, at which point the 911 operator asks for the first time, “Tell me exactly what happened?”
“I’m not sure,” replies Student 2. “Two of my friends have started seizing … They walked in and they passed out on the floor.” She does not tell the 911 operator that they had just taken drugs.
Student 2 assures the 911 operator that her two unconscious friends are breathing. The 911 operator then asks if either of the victims is pregnant, diabetic, epileptic or has a history of stroke or brain tumour, to which Student 2 responds, “No.”
Approximately seven minutes into the call, the 911 operator says she is sending the paramedics as soon as possible. Eight and a half minutes in, a male campus security officer replaces Student 2 on the line. At the 11-minute mark, the 911 operator asks the campus security officer: “[Is there a] possibility they’ve taken something?”
“Unknown,” he replies.
Two minutes later, 13 minutes into the call, the campus security officer tells the 911 operator: “There’s a high probability they’ve taken something, according to one of the residents here.”
At that point, the 911 operator instructs the security officer to “administer one Narcan each.”
After confirming each patient has been given a dose of Narcan, the campus security officer tells the 911 operator: “I don’t think I’m getting a pulse on this one.”
A male voice is then heard saying, “Sidney, can you hear me? Sidney, wake up!”
The call ends a few moments later when first responders with the fire department arrive at the scene.
On Monday, Student 2 testified that she didn’t remember much about the 911 call or her interactions with campus security officers.
“I remember I was trying to tell [the 911 operator] where we were located. I don’t remember [the 911 operator] asking if we had taken anything. I remember telling her that they were seizing and turning blue,” she said.
Student 2 testified she didn’t immediately tell the 911 operator or campus security officers that she and her friends had taken drugs because she was afraid of getting in trouble.
“I didn’t realize it was going to end like this,” she said. “I realize I should have said something … I honestly couldn’t say for sure what I was thinking at the time.”
Student 3 was revived by the Narcan, but she and Student 2 refused to go to the hospital when McIntyre-Starko was transported. They called for an ambulance later that night.
Student 3 was excused from testifying at the inquest due to medical reasons. Instead, a statement she prepared was read into the record.
Coroner’s court also heard testimony Tuesday from UVic student witnesses Amirah Ali and Kyra Herriott that has called into question some of the information contained in a report the university commissioned into McIntyre-Starko’s death.
Written by former Abbotsford police chief Bob Rich, the report states that UVic security officers had to push through an “estimated 20 or 30 onlookers” in the hallway to get to the unconscious victims.
“These onlookers continued to mill around, press in, and make noise… The students in the hallway were not quiet. That interference and noise made it more difficult to hear if Sidney was breathing,” the report says.
But Ali and Herriott, who both tried to help the victims, said there was no crowd whatsoever in the hallway.
“Seeing as there were no onlookers, they weren’t milling around,” Ali told the court.
The inquest continues on Wednesday and is scheduled to run through to the end of next week.
Coroners’ inquests do not assign blame but are public inquiries that aim to determine the circumstances surrounding a death.
At the conclusion of testimony, the five-person coroner’s jury will make non-binding recommendations to prevent similar deaths in the future.
