Intoxication a factor in teen’s fatal fall
REGINA — When they last saw their youngest daughter, she was heading out the door for a Saturday night spent with friends.
The Slafereks next heard about Jaiden from police, who knocked on the door of the family’s Qu’Appelle home in the middle of the night last year to say the 17-year-old had died in a bizarre and tragic fall from a catwalk at the Regina Conexus Arts Centre. The stunning news didn’t end there. Toxicology tests would show the high school student had a blood-alcohol level between .30 and .37 — about four times the legal driving limit, as an inquest probing her death heard Thursday.
“No matter what happened, it still comes back to providing alcohol to a minor. … It just has to change. There has to be some consequences,” Jaiden’s father Rick Slaferek told reporters after the inquest heard from the last of 14 witnesses. “As we learned today, it kills,” he added.
“We can look at so many different things that happened this week, but it largely comes back to the wrong person having alcohol and not being able to handle it. It’s hard to say that was my daughter,” Rick said.
A five-person jury begins deliberations Friday. In addition to determining when, where and how Jaiden Lynn Slaferek died, the jury can make recommendations to prevent similar deaths.
Rick said his much-loved daughter — who “would give you a hug, just because” — was on the brink of being an adult and like any parent, he trusted she would come home safely when she left their home.
“Where she was that night and where we thought she was going to be wasn’t the same place,” he said.
Slaferek was among a group of young people who went from a Regina house party, where they had been drinking, to a dance DJed by a friend in one of the centre’s banquet rooms. Someone snuck in a 26-ounce bottle of Jack Daniels and the group also purchased liquor.
Slaferek and two young men, aged 19 and 21, left the dance around midnight on Jan. 15, 2012, and went exploring. They entered a door from the outside and followed a series of stairs into a room marked “Danger — Do Not Enter.” They manoeuvred over a leather armchair and a piece of plywood to climb steel stairs that led to an unlocked half-door. In the pitch darkness, the trio ducked through the door and under a diagonal steel girder to unwittingly step onto a catwalk 12 metres above the main stage. As the men testified, at one moment Slaferek was with them — and then she was not.
Slaferek’s mother sat clutching a photo Thursday as pathologist Dr. Dino Grammatico testified how the teen had suffered massive head injuries, several broken ribs and other internal damage.
“She would have died instantly,” he said.
Grammatico said Slaferek had alcohol but no other drugs in her system.
“She certainly had a lot to drink” and would have shown signs of intoxication, he said. The effects of alcohol can depend on one’s tolerance, but typically at the levels seen in Slaferek’s slight body, she would have been staggering, possibly falling, lethargic and “grossly impaired,” said Grammatico, who noted motor functions and inhibitions would also be diminished.
In response to questions by Slaferek’s father, Grammatico agreed it would have been challenging for the drunken teen to navigate her way over a chair, up the stairs and onto the catwalk.
“If she was on her own, she may not even be in that situation,” the doctor said.
It’s still unclear exactly how Slaferek and her friends gained entry to the dance, hosted by the Luther University Student Association. Organizer Ashley Smith said admittance was by ticket, purchased in advance or at the door. Two security guards checked for identification and provided wristbands for anyone of legal drinking age.
Three of the men who accompanied Slaferek that evening told the inquest “we just walked in.”
Guards and organizers were to monitor for underage drinkers, but Smith admitted it’s hard to prevent someone of legal drinking age from passing alcohol to a minor.
Asked by reporters if he had any advice to offer parents, Rick Slaferek said almost every teen will want to experiment with alcohol.
“Don’t give in. Because that’s all that you have. You have to be strong and say no. … Don’t let it destroy a life,” he said.