Norfield inquest: PAPS guard thought ambulance was needed

“He seemed like he was intoxicated. He was very compliant. He was sometimes unpredictable – I had dealt with him in the past,” said Jordan.

While checking on him after being put in a cell for refusing to isolate, he noted that Norfield’s speech was slurred and he stumbled a bit when he walked into the cell block.

Jordan next looked at Norfield hours later when the alarm was raised by a guard around 2:00 a.m. He then saw Norfield sitting on the floor.

“I could see he was sweating, he wasn’t very comfortable. I spoke to him through the cell door and tried to calm him down a bit,” the officer said.

Jordan explained he then informed other staff that he thought an ambulance might be needed.

He testified that Sergeant Tyson Morash responded that he would come and see what was going but Morash pointed out that Norfield had been taken to the hospital twice the day before and multiple tests showed normal results.

Guard Paul Lecorre told the jury that Norfield’s physical condition was getting worse as time went on.

“He seemed normal at first then all of a sudden, he was on the ground and he couldn’t get up. He was a total mess,” Lecorre said. “I told the sergeant, and he said no, he was already at the hospital twice that day.”

Guards are not allowed to give first aid or call an ambulance. Instead, they call a sergeant, one of whom is available either in the building or by a speed dial, and they decide if medical attention is needed.

Lecorre’s replacement, Mike Mesluk, came in at 5:30 a.m. and was given an update on Norfield’s condition.

“Right away my wheels started spinning in my head. I know Jordan fairly well and I’d never known him to have a seizure,” he said.

While it’s quite common for intoxicated prisoners to lay on the floor and vomit or spill things, Norfield tended to be a person who would take a blanket, lay on the bench, and go to sleep. When he was sober, he would be released in good spirits.

Mesluk said that he was watching the monitor with Morash beside him when Norfield fell off the toilet and ‘face planted’ into the concrete wall.

Morash explained that an ambulance was coming for Norfield that morning to take him for a medical assessment before possible transportation to North Battleford – where mandatory COVID isolation was done.

Despite his concern over the difference in Norfield’s behaviour, Mesluk said that he didn’t think immediate medical attention was needed, although he was sure the prisoner needed attention at some point.

“I’m not a doctor. I’m not an addiction person but it was common sense. There was something wrong with him,” he said.

He said that in the eight years he spent guarding for PAPS, he had pushed the emergency buzzer about 30 times and the vast majority of the time, the cause was the prisoner having a seizure.

Once the buzzer sounds, every sworn officer in the building rushes down to the cell block as fast as possible.

When asked, Mesluk said it was his personal choice to not wake prisoners if they were sleeping as it seemed counterproductive to them sleeping off intoxication.

He was not sure of the official policy on rousability checks, which involve the guard making sure they get a verbal response from inmates.

What seems like unusual behaviour elsewhere is not necessarily strange when dealing with prisoners.

“There were hundreds of guys in there that were just as bad. We try to handle the drunken persons in cells so that they don’t have to have them in the hospital.”

Dr. Ferdie Smit was the first medical witness and treated Norfield at the Victoria Hospital ER on Dec. 2.

He recalled treating the wound on Norfield’s head and stapling the laceration shut. He ordered an MRI to check for further injury and noted that Norfield had very high creatine kinase levels in his blood.

Normal levels are between 30 and 200 but Norfield’s were well over 11,000.

Increased levels can happen after a heart attack, muscle injury, or strenuous exercise.

Until reviewing the files right before the inquest started yesterday, Smit said he was unaware that the patient was over-hydrated. Day one’s testimony showed Norfield consuming 128 four-ounce cups of water in the hours he was in cells and using the bathroom a disproportionate amount of times.

ER staff get information on patients from the people who bring them in, such as paramedics, police or family. In Norfield’s case, the guard’s observations of his condition never made it that far.

Smit was told that Norfield’s head wound was self-inflicted and thought because he had been in cells that he was dehydrated.

The lawyer for Norfield’s mother asked Smit about the symptoms of polydipsia, which is the over-consumption of water.

The condition is very rare said Smit and leads to low sodium levels in the patient and dilutes electrolytes.

Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, confusion, imbalance, and seizures.

“I’m very surprised that all this information was not communicated,” Smit said.

Had he known about the seizures, for instance, some of the treatment paths would have been different although he re-iterated several times that it would not necessarily have changed the outcome.

Smit diagnosed Norfield with hypoglycemia, muscle damage, and dehydration. He treated him in the ER on Dec. 2, 2020, before admitting him as an in-patient and other doctors took over his care.

The inquest resumes Wednesday with planned testimony from three police officers, ambulance personnel, and two medical practitioners.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com

by Susan McNeil

Norfield inquest: PAPS guard thought ambulance was needed

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