Frozen woman found dead was pregnant

WINNIPEG — A Winnipeg woman who walked away from a hospital and was later found dead outdoors in frigid temperatures was two months pregnant, her mother said.

Eleanor Sinclair said she found out during a meeting with Winnipeg health officials on Thursday — one week after the body of her daughter, Windy Sinclair, was found outside an apartment building.

“I just broke down,” Sinclair said Friday. “She probably didn’t even know herself.”

Windy Sinclair, a 29-year-old mother of four, was struggling with crystal-meth addiction and had been hallucinating and talking to herself at a family Christmas dinner, her mother said. The woman was taken by ambulance to hospital.

She was being treated and had undergone tests. But when staff returned to her room to share the results, they found she had left. Staff searched the area for her, but were unable to locate her and calls to the number on Sinclair’s file were unanswered.

Eleanor Sinclair said she and other family members were not notified, and when they called for information the following day, were initially told her daughter had been treated and released.

The city was in the middle of a cold snap at the time. Temperatures were well below -20 C. Windy Sinclair’s body was found Dec. 28, far from the hospital and the family home.

Her mother said that so far, conversations with the health authority have raised more questions than answers. The authority is still investigating what happened.

Her daughter was apparently being given fluids intravenously when she left.

The family wants to know whether the hospital issued a Code Yellow — an alert when a patient is missing — and what, if any, steps were taken to try to find her.

Hospitals should make sure there is constant surveillance for patients who are intoxicated and unable to care for themselves, Sinclair said.