Blood vessel tears led to Rashidi’s death: specialist
Subsequent strokes weren’t ‘survivable,’ neurologist testifies at murder trial
Tears to three of the four blood vessels leading to her skull caused large strokes in both sides of Maryam Rashidi’s brain, a neurologist testified Thursday.
Dr. Philippe Couillard said the wounds suffered by Rashidi when she was struck by a stolen pickup truck — which included a skull fracture and broken vertebrae — were mostly survivable.
But the Foothills Medical Centre specialist said the strokes caused by clots which formed in Rashidi’s blood vessels were not.
“Everything except the strokes — the extent of her strokes — was survivable,” Couillard told Crown prosecutor James Thomas.
“Everything else that she had was survivable, but the extent of the strokes was not.”
Couillard was testifying at the second-degree murder trial of Joshua Mitchell.
Mitchell, 22, is accused of intentionally running over Rashidi after the Centex cashier chased after a stolen pickup truck which fled the gas station without paying for a tank of diesel.
He also faces charges of hit and run where a death has occurred, theft of the fuel and possession of the stolen truck, in connection with the June 7, 2015, deadly incident.
Couillard said a series of CT scans were conducted on Rashidi after she arrived at Foothills following the 16 Ave. N.W. collision that morning.
“She arrived by ambulance and was assessed in the emergency department,” the doctor said. “She was unconscious.”
Couillard’s first contact with Rashidi was in the intensive care unit, which is where she was taken after being assessed. “She was in a deep coma,” he said. Couillard said Rashidi had been in that condition from the time of the collision.
“What the record said was she was struck by a large truck, or vehicle and at the scene she was unconscious, she was in a deep coma when she found,” he said.
X-rays and CT scans were done “to try to identify problems that are fixable.”
Those showed a bone fracture at the base of her skull, a fracture to her first vertebrae and a bruise on her lung.
None of those would have caused her condition, he said. “We were quite puzzled as to why she was in a deep coma,” he told Thomas.
Her condition led them to believe she had a problem with both the left and right sides of her brain.
“You suspect there’s an injury to both sides of the brain, because otherwise you’d be wide awake,” Couillard said.
A CT angiogram, where dye was injected into Rashidi’s blood was then conducted.
“The CT scan demonstrated that three out of the four blood vessels that go to the brain had damage to them,” the doctor said.
Those tears would have caused clots which then moved to both sides of her brain, causing large strokes, he told the five-man, seven woman jury.
The dual strokes left doctors without options.
“It impacted what we could do at the time, which was, in fact, nothing.”
The strokes caused swelling to her brain which caused compression to her brain stem and stopped her breathing.
She was declared dead at 1:18 p.m. on June 9.
Mitchell’s trial continues on Friday.