Boating crash, death prompt joint inquest
Special probe will investigate role of Ontario’s 911 system in two separate incidents
Aspecial coroner’s inquest will probe Ontario’s 911 emergency response system after a Sudbury boating tragedy that killed three people and the separate death of a Casselman woman.
The chief coroner for Ontario called the joint inquest on Friday.
“Given that there were two instances that related to the 911 response system, this is a vital component of public safety. Everybody has the potential to be impacted by the 911 response system,” Dr. Dirk Huyer said in an interview.
“It’s important for the public to have understanding of the 911 response system and potential limitations it might have,” he said.
Huyer said the inquiry would examine the June 30, 2013, deaths of Matthew Robert Humeniuk, 33, and Michael Isaac Kritz, 34, as well as Stephanie Joelle Bertrand, 25, who died July 8, 2013.
All three died in Sudbury after a boating accident on Lake Wanapitei.
Huyer said the death of Kathryn Missen, 54, who died Sept. 3, 2014, in the Eastern Ontario village of Casselman, as the result of a medical condition, would also be part of the scope of the inquest.
Missen died even though her family immediately called 911 and she lived near emergency responders, who failed to arrive.
The Sudbury incident was similarly tragic.
Survivor Rob Dorzek called 911after the boat crash and was on the phone for an hour as the 911 dispatcher struggled to determine his location even though it had been pinpointed through GPS.
During that excruciating hour — with Dorzek cradling his unconscious girlfriend, Bertrand, in his arms — the dispatcher told him to light a signal fire to help responders find them.
But in dry conditions the fire spread and ignited the damaged boat, killing Kritz, who had survived the crash.
An internal Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care report obtained by the Star in 2014 revealed an emergency response fiasco thanks to “communication issues.”
It showed firefighters arrived at a rescue boat at 1 a.m. but were told by dispatchers to wait another 20 minutes for the arrival of paramedics, who were having trouble finding the marina.
In 2014, Dorzek said the signal fire “probably wouldn’t have been a bad thing if there were no delays.”
“But even in this case they should never have talked me into turning the scene of an accident like that into the bonfire it turned out to be.”
In both incidents, Huyer overruled local coroners who rejected inquests despite pleas from the families involved.
“The two cases — in separate parts of the province — both had issues that caused me to think about the 911 response system provincially,” he said.
“They actually amplified each other.”