Forgiveness ‘like 10,000 pounds ... off my shoulders’ for officer
Kathryn Missen haunts David Dionne’s dreams.
“Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Kathryn,” the OPP constable told the inquest into her death on Tuesday.
“I dream about her almost every night. She appears in my dreams. She’s standing there and she’s smiling.”
On Sept. 1, 2014, Dionne and his partner were dispatched to check on Missen at her home in Casselman after she had called 911 during what would prove to be a fatal asthma attack. The inquest has heard how that called was answered at the OPP’s Central Emergency Reporting Bureau in North Bay, transferred to a call taker at a secondary call centre in Smiths Falls, relayed to a dispatcher and finally sent — after a delay of more than an hour and a half — to Dionne on patrol in Russell County.
Along the way, bits of information were lost, including that the first call taker had heard Missen gasping and struggling to speak. By time Dionne received the call, it seemed to be a low-priority “no voice contact” 911 call on an already busy shift.
Dionne never went to Missen’s Montcalm Street home, believing it to be the result of a technical “problem on the line” and eventually forgot about it. He said he was shocked to learn two days later when his partner phoned him at home on his day off to say Missen had been found dead.
“I would have dropped everything to go to try to save her,” Dionne testified, struggling to control his emotions and pausing to wipe tears from his eyes.
“As an officer, we’re sworn to protect life. A human life, that’s the most ...” — he paused and lowered his head for several seconds, but declined coroner’s counsel Prabhu Rajan’s offer of a recess.
“A human life is the most important thing out there. I would have dropped everything. I would have driven there as fast and as safely as possible.”
Dionne, 34, pleaded guilty to two Police Services Act charges of neglect of duty in the incident and was demoted. The veteran officer, who had eight years’ experience with the RCMP and the OPP before Missen’s death, is on long-term leave from the OPP and told the inquest he might never go back to policing.
Missen’s family attended Dionne’s 2017 OPP disciplinary hearing but assured him they didn’t blame him for Kathryn’s death.
“When we left (the discipline hearing) and you hugged me in the hallway, I have to tell you, it was like 10,000 pounds was lifted off my shoulders,” he testified. “Thank you for your kindness.”
The complex and wide-ranging inquest, under presiding coroner Dr. David Cameron, is examining how Ontario’s rural 911 system performed in two deadly incidents. The first week of testimony took place in Sudbury and looked at a boating accident that killed three people and where emergency responders had difficult finding the crash location.
The Missen portion of the inquest, being held in Ottawa, is looking at how crucial information was lost when the call cascaded through the system.
Dionne said that front-line officers, faced with a number of highpriority calls during a busy shift, sometimes must use their own experience to decide which call is the most urgent. He was never told that the original call taker had heard Missen’s voice on the line, even if her words were unintelligible.
“I feel that was crucial information that was lost,” he said.
Asked how he would improve the system, Dionne suggested it would be best if Missen’s 911 call had gone directly to a call taker in Smiths Falls, in the same call centre where the OPP’s dispatcher for Eastern Ontario works.
“Then if the dispatcher needs more information, they could just tap the call taker on the shoulder and get it,” he said.
He also agreed with a suggestion, made by the Missen family through the coroner’s counsel, that vital medical information would be helpful for officers. Police would respond faster to a silent 911 call from an address where there is a history of domestic violence, for example, knowing that an abuser might have pulled the phone out of the wall.
Police knew nothing of Missen’s long-standing food allergies nor had she ever had to call 911 for an asthma attack. While the information might have been useful, “I’m sure privacy advocates would be jumping up and down in the air about that,” Dionne said.
Kathryn’s sister, Brenda Missen, told reporters outside the inquest that the family was moved to hear Dionne dreamed of Kathryn.
“We feel Kathryn with us all the time. To hear someone who didn’t even know her, that she’s with him too — that’s pretty powerful.”
The Missen family is pushing for an end to Ontario’s two-tier 911 dispatch system. Had the proper information made it to the OPP officers, Kathryn’s life might have been saved, Brenda Missen said.
“We can’t say for sure. We don’t know how quickly she died. But from what we understand from professionals that deal with asthma, she might have just needed a shot of adrenalin or some oxygen in a matter of a few minutes, and she might still be here.”
The inquest continues Wednesday.