Audrey Scott-Lafontaine suspected something was wrong on March 27, 2023. Two police officers attacked and a man shot: that’s what the experienced paramedic knew about the intervention that awaited her that evening.
But the event was only a “priority 3”, giving the false impression that the situation was not the most urgent. Clearly, it was “not the right code,” said M.me Scott-Lafontaine Thursday morning, while the coroner’s inquest into the deaths of Maureen Breau and Isaac Brouillard Lessard continued.
However, Sergeant Maureen Breau was bleeding out and struggling to stand on her two legs that evening. His colleague, agent William Berrouard, suffered a head laceration and a skull fracture. The two Sûreté du Québec (SQ) police officers were stabbed by Isaac Brouillard Lessard, a thirty-year-old suffering from schizophrenia. The latter was shot dead by the police due to imminent danger.
“In our head it didn’t work. It went without saying that it was more urgent,” explained the paramedic and team leader Thursday morning.
The paramedic received the call around 8 p.m. She was then a few minutes from the scene of the tragedy.
The priority level communicated did not reflect the urgency of the situation. However, that night, the teams did not receive any other calls simultaneously and the transport went smoothly.
In priority 0, it might have changed by 15 seconds. If we had had another call at the same time, there would have been a longer delay.
Audrey Scott-Lafontaine, paramedic
It was 8:30 p.m. when he arrived there. Officer Frédérique Poitras of the SQ is with her supervisor Maureen Breau. A chaotic scene marked in M’s memoryme Scott-Lafontaine.
“It screams, it screams, the sirens scream,” she recalled.
Maureen Breau, lying on the ground, was breathing with difficulty.
The paramedics stayed with her for 14 minutes in the ambulance, unable to intubate her.
“This is the first time this has happened. I have never seen that in my career, telling me my god is really not the right code,” reiterated Mme Scott-Lafontaine.
An automatic code
“When I saw the mention of priority 3, I asked myself questions. I found that not very representative of the situation,” explained Collin Gagné. The dispatcher at the Mauricie–Centre-du-Québec health communication center (CCS-MCQ) received the call from the SQ regarding the attack. We told him the main points: police officers injured, man neutralized.
The short exchange between Mr. Gagné and the SQ dispatcher was listened to in the courtroom on Thursday.
It was only once I had everything in that I saw priority 3.
Collin Gagné, dispatcher
Mr. Gagné explained to M.e Kamel that it is not possible to assign a priority code himself when he receives calls. Instead, he must enter a sending code that represents the situation: aggression, abdominal pain, etc. Once this protocol has been carried out, the priority code is automatically generated.
“Paramedics cannot change priority codes,” explained the young man.
This is why the priority code 3 appeared. When he realized this, Mr. Gagné changed the sending code once the call ended. It was impossible for him to know the priority code until this whole procedure was completed.
Hands tied in the face of mental health
Intervention by the health system and police forces is only possible when imminent danger is present, lamented Marylène Ménard, social worker for the Trois-Rivières Police Department.
“As soon as there is talk of a hypothetical danger, of a future gesture, our levers are less and less present. »
She gave the example to the coroner of a person generating calls to 911. She may have calmed down, even if the responders know that she is still at risk if she stops taking her medication or starts taking it again. consume drugs.
The authorities are then powerless, since there must be immediate danger for someone to be hospitalized against their will or incarcerated.
“As soon as we start using “ifs”, we can’t do anything criminally. Neither the hospital nor the police can act,” she described, criticizing a legislative framework in her limited opinion.
reference: www.lapresse.ca