Mother of teen who died at UVic seeks BCEHS changes; coroner's inquest to be held in April

The mother of an 18-year-old who died in her UVic dormitory room after ingesting fentanyl says she wants a coroner’s inquest to recommend a series of changes to procedures at BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS), along with mandatory CPR and naloxone training in high schools and new directives for BC university and college campuses to increase safety requirements.

“We hope the inquest can make recommendations to BCEHS so that an ambulance would be immediately dispatched when people are unconscious and blue, or when there are multiple unconscious patients,” Caroline McIntyre, the mother of Sidney McIntyre-Sarko wrote in an email to Capital Daily.

She also said she hopes the inquest will recommend the province provide the public with nasal naloxone instead of what she termed the “archaic injectable naloxone kits with needles, syringes, and glass vials” currently available in the province, while pointing out Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, the Northwest Territories and Yukon “all provide the simple, quick and easy-to-use nasal naloxone.”

McIntyre, who has worked as an emergency physician for 25 years, also said she would like to see the inquest recommend mandatory CPR and naloxone training in high schools along with mandatory education about the toxic drug supply and overdose recognition and prevention.

“Every person in BC deserves to know basic life-saving skills, and the best way to do this is through schools,” she wrote.

In January 2024, Cailin Shea McIntyre-Starko, known as Sidney, suffered a catastrophic brain injury from a lack of oxygen. She and another student collapsed onto their dorm-room floor, the result of ingesting fentanyl. A third student also consumed the drug but managed to call 911. The two other students survived, but on Jan. 26, McIntyre-Starko died in hospital.

A public inquest into what was happening leading to her death will begin on April 28 in Burnaby, BC’s solicitor general announced on Thursday. A jury will hear witnesses' evidence to determine the facts surrounding her death, and make recommendations to prevent deaths in similar circumstances.

McIntyre expressed concern that BCEHS call takers use proprietary protocols from an American company she asserts doesn’t follow guidelines on when to initiate CPR, set out by the International Liaison Committee On Resuscitation or the American Heart Association, something she feels may have been a factor in her daughter’s case.

Letter to the premier

In an open letter to Premier David Eby last May, McIntyre and her husband Kenton Starko said campus security waited nine minutes to administer the naloxone they carried and 12 minutes to begin performing CPR—a timeline Eby called “profoundly disturbing.”

Generally speaking, a person can survive for four to six minutes without breathing before brain damage occurs.

“We hope the inquest can make recommendations to BCEHS so that: they don’t take three-and-half minutes just to determine the location of a call before asking what is wrong,” McIntyre wrote Thursday in her email to Capital Daily, as the date of the inquiry was announced.

BCEHS call takers, she wrote, cannot ignore unconscious patients without recommending basic care, or without immediately dispatching an ambulance.

“This is not just about drug overdoses, but about every person in BC who is at risk of a cardiac or respiratory arrest,” she wrote. “Time is crucial in those circumstances.”

Province got involved last year

In response to the criticism last year—and backed by Post-secondary Minister Lisa Beare, who admitted new policies were needed to address the toxic drug crisis in BC schools—the province established the Post-Secondary Overdose Prevention and Response Steering Committee.

In July, the committee announced a series of guidelines for universities and colleges to follow to reduce the risk of toxic deaths.

Schools must now provide easily accessible naloxone, text alerts on toxic drugs, and clear rules about responding to emergencies.

And Ontario was listening

Last summer, also in direct response to the circumstances surrounding the Victoria teen’s death, Ontario’s education ministry made safety changes for schools in that province.

As the Vancouver Sun reports, Ontario’s deputy minister of colleges and universities wrote a letter to nearly 50 post-secondary presidents, ordering them “to revisit their overdose prevention protocols, including harm reduction education, access to naloxone, and providing information about treatment.”

David Wai also encouraged the schools to work together on how they respond to “situations that require lifesaving emergency intervention.”

A coroner’s inquest is a non-fault-finding public inquiry that: determines the facts related to a death; makes recommendations to prevent deaths in similar circumstances and; ensures public confidence all parties were above board in their handling of the death.

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The inquest proceedings can be livestreamed here.

Sidney McIntyre-Starko’s organs were retrieved and transplanted into five individuals.

You can read more about Sidney on the website SidneyShouldBeHere.ca