Coroner’s inquest looks into death of Elisapee Michael

Garth Eggenberger, the chief coroner of the Northwest Territories, is presiding in Iqaluit over an inquest into the death of Elisapee Michael. An inquest is judicial process that can be used to inquire into unexplained deaths. (FILE PHOTO)

A coroner’s inquest in Iqaluit, which started April 4, plans to spend the next two weeks looking at the circumstances surrounding the death of Elisapee Michael in Iqaluit in 2009.

Michael, 52, died Aug. 13, 2009, four days after she had fallen down the front stairs of the Nova Inn in Iqaluit.

Garth Eggenberger, the chief coroner of the Northwest Territories, is presiding over the inquest, a judicial process that can be used to inquire into unexplained deaths. Because Michael spent time in detention prior to her death, an inquest into her death is mandatory.

During this inquest, witnesses may be compelled to give evidence under oath before lawyers representing the various parties involved in the issue, and in front of a jury, which is allowed to make recommendations to improve public safety.

The jury of six, including two men and four women, will hear evidence for up to two weeks.

Some testimony will be delivered via closed circuit television, because many witnesses, who include police and medical staff, are no longer in Iqaluit.

The first two witnesses, Michael’s son, Willie Isuhulutak, and her sister, Eva Michael, told the inquest about what they experienced in the immediate period before and after Michael was injured on Aug. 9, 2009.

Ishulutak, 33, clutching a kleenex as he spoke in Inuktitut, said he met his mother at the Nova Inn’s Kicking Caribou lounge at 8:00 p.m. where they ate and drank a few beers together. He said he left the bar two hours later, after giving his mother $60. He had no idea she never made it home until much later he learned she had was in the Qikiqtani General Hospital.

Eva Michael, 52, rushed to the hospital at about 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 9, after receiving a call that her sister was there, but was unable to speak to her sister because doctors said they had had to sedate her. Her sister showed no visible injuries, she said, but looked as if she was asleep.

Before leaving, Michael gave a nurse her telephone number and asked him to call her when her sister woke up.

According to the description of the events, delivered by Eggenberger on April 4, Elisapee Michael had gone to the Nova Inn with her son where she consumed a number of alcoholic drinks.

She was asked to leave the bar and was seen falling down the front steps of the hotel, Eggenberger said.

A security guard came to her aid and found she was unresponsive and asked that an ambulance be called, he said.

Elisapee Michael was transported to the Qikiqtani General Hospital where she regained consciousness and was assessed by a doctor.

But she became disruptive and since she was intoxicated, the RCMP were called to take to her the RCMP cells, Eggenberger said.

Two RCMP members went to the hospital to take her into custody.

She appeared to be intoxicated but was cooperative, he said. She was put into a cell and shortly afterwards was noticed to have vomited, he said.

She was checked periodically but appeared to be asleep, but after lying in the cells for an extended period, “concern was raised about her condition,” Eggenberger said.

After a member entered the cell and couldn’t get any response from Elisapee Michael, an ambulance was called and she was taken to the hospital.

It was determined she had a head injury and was medevaced to an Ottawa hospital where doctors found she had a “severe” head injury.

In her testimony, Eva Michael, who said “nobody called” about her sister’s move to the RCMP cells, only learned the next evening that her sister was back in the hospital — and this time that she was facing a medevac the next morning.

Eva Michael decided to accompany her sister as a medical escort, but was unable to go with her to the medevac. She didn’t arrive in Ottawa until the afternoon of Aug. 11 on a scheduled flight.

Upon her arrival at the hospital, she spoke with a surgeon.

She learned that the surgery facing her sister was dangerous and carried huge risks.

The odds of her sister surviving the surgery was only 50-50, and it could leave her a “vegetable,” if she survived. Her sister should have received some medical intervention within two hours of the incident to avoid the damage which had already taken place within her brain, the surgeon told her.

Eva Michael sobbed as she described how she was asked to decide whether to proceed with the surgery. She consulted long-distance with her mother back in Iqaluit and spoke to Iqaluit’s retired Anglican minister Rev. Mike Gardener, who was in Ottawa.

After consulting with her family, medical support was discontinued and Elisapee Michael died from her injury on Aug. 13, 2009, the inquest heard.

Proceedings are to continue throughout this week and next. For the first day of hearings, about nine family members and friends sat in the courtroom listening to the jury selection procedure and testimony from witnesses.
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