Yet another close call in a stairwell
There are towns with smaller populations than 200 Wellesley. It is the biggest public-housing building in Canada. There are 709 apartments, and many entrances and exits; security is a problem.
Not everyone who lives in the building is a tenant. Drugs flow easily enough. And, as in any town, there are assaults, robberies, murders and suicides. Because no one seems able to stop the drugs, there have also been deaths by overdose.
Better security might help prevent the murders, robberies and assaults. But now some people are trying to stop the deaths by overdose.
Cliff Martin is a tenant rep. I have known him for a long time. He is a nighthawk by nature and inclination.
He said, “About four months ago, I was in the lobby around 1 a.m.” He was watching people come and go. Why? “The security guards are new. I try to tell them who is who.”
Here’s what happened: “A tenant came up to me and told me there was someone upstairs who had passed out, maybe overdosed, in the stairwell on the fifteenth floor.” Cliff got upstairs as quickly as he could, and the security guard went with him.
“We knew it was the south stairwell. When we got there, I saw someone unconscious, not quite blue. I’d say she was in her early 30s. I’ve seen her before. She doesn’t live here.”
What did he do? “I felt for a pulse. The guard said she wasn’t breathing; she was, but she was breathing shallow.” Cliff ran downstairs to his apartment and grabbed his naloxone kit.
Naloxone is a miracle drug; if administered in time, it prevents death by heroin overdose; the effects are almost instantaneous. Cliff got his kit and ran back upstairs as quickly as he could; time, ticking.
He said, “The guard was in the way. I told him to look out. I gave her a shot in the arm and we backed off.”
And then? “Nothing happened at first. She started to gargle, and then she started talking to herself, and she opened her eyes.”
He said, “I didn’t know which floor she’d come from.” I wondered what he meant. He said, “There are drug apartments in the building; if people overdose, they get dragged out and dumped in the stairwell, sometimes on another floor.” Me, speechless. That’s close to murder. What happened, once the naloxone kicked in, is that the woman got up, but she refused to come downstairs to wait for further help.
By this time, the ambulance had arrived, the paramedics were not able to get into the building right away because the guard had been with Cliff, and not at his station.
By the time they did get in — Toronto paramedics also carry naloxone, by the way — the woman had disappeared. But she lived. What now? Cliff has recently revived the tenants’ association. There is a new executive. Charlotte Jenei is the treasurer. Ada MacDonald is the vice-chair. Dylan Crawford is the secretary. They have all signed up for a course in the administration of naloxone.
The injection of life-saving drugs is not the usual duty of a tenants’ organization. Why are they willing to do this?
Ada said, “One of my neighbours is a user.” Charlotte said, “Maybe I’ll see somebody.” Dylan said, “There’s a possibility it could happen some more. I go to walk my dog, I see drug users.”
Charlotte said, “I’ve lived here 11 years. It wasn’t as bad as it is now.” Why does she try for a transfer? “I don’t want to move to another part of the city.” Ada is fairly new in the building. She — brave girl — moved here as a matter of choice. She said, “If we’re going to get Housing to do anything, well, we have to do it ourselves, take things in hand.”
What else, besides naloxone, do they want to take in hand?
Cliff said, “We want security cameras, alarms and some way to deal with the people who trespass.” And what of the girl who overdosed? Cliff saw her recently. How did she react, seeing the man who saved her life? He said, “She sort of smiled and said, ‘Oh, you’re the guy.’
“And then she walked away.” Joe Fiorito appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. jfiorito@thestar.ca