Ryan Eamer, 46, went with his mother, Brenda Eamer, to Brandon Regional Health Center’s emergency department seeking rehab services on February 18, 2021. At the time, the ER waiting room was nearly empty, his mother says. Brenda says that at first the nurse told them that Ryan was too drunk to go into a rehab bed. They were told to go home and for Ryan to come back in 24-48 hours when he was sober. She insisted her son see a doctor that day because she knew he was suffering from alcohol withdrawal. She left the hospital after checking him out. Sometime later, he collapsed while waiting to see a doctor, a later review of his death found. Despite internal records showing he was not a threat to others, the decision was made to call the police and put him in a jail cell for rioting under Manitoba’s Intoxicated Detention Act, which gives police the power to arrest a person who is drunk if deemed dangerous. His mother was never informed that her son was being held by the police. She only found out when the police called to tell her where they could take him. “He was desperate for help,” she said. “If they didn’t want to be bothered with him, just call me and say, ‘Come get him…’ Why put him through all this?” After four hours in police custody, Ryan asked to return to the hospital. Although he had a visible mark on his head when he arrived, he was not examined or evaluated by a doctor, according to a review of his death by Prairie Mountain Health, the regional health authority for southwestern Manitoba. After his previous experience, he felt humiliated and told his mother that he just wanted to go home and sleep. His mother took him back to his apartment. He promised to return in the morning so they could return to the hospital and try again to access rehab services.
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“We never got to say goodbye”
The next day, Ryan didn’t answer when he knocked on his door. Came back at 11am. and then at 12:30 p.m It was not uncommon for her to go to her son’s apartment two or three times before answering the door. But on the third try he looked in the window and noticed that the furniture was overturned. Worried, he crawled out of the window. She found Ryan unresponsive on the floor and called 911. “All I wanted to do was just hold his hand and … let him know I was there, and just hang in there for help to come. But he didn’t make it,” she said. Ryan Eamer on a 2013 family vacation in Alberta. His mother says he was a big fan of the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers. (Submitted by Brenda Eamer) His mother wanted to go to the ambulance with her son but was told she couldn’t due to COVID restrictions. He was pronounced dead at the hospital where he had been waiting for care more than 24 hours earlier. “I can’t put into words, as a mother, losing a child, no matter the age… You can’t put into words how devastating this is,” Brenda Eamer said. “We never got to say goodbye.” WATCHES | Brenda Eamer’s son, Ryan, died a day after being removed from Brandon Hospital:
Brenda Eamer’s son, Ryan, died a day after being removed from a Brandon hospital
Brenda Eamer believes that if doctors had examined her son, he might still be here today. Ryan Eamer struggled with alcohol addiction when he went to Brandon Hospital’s emergency department last February. He died the next day.
2 reviews
The autopsy report showed his cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head, caused by a fall. It says he allegedly fell in the emergency room and “may have hit his head,” but won’t definitively say when the fall happened. In a letter to Brenda Eamer, Prairie Mountain Health said a review of video of Ryan’s fall in the emergency room found it was a “directed fall” and was “unlikely” to have caused the head injury that killed him . Brenda tried to get a copy of the video from the emergency room, but was denied access. Prairie Mountain Health apologized to Eamer’s family and conducted an investigation into his death. (Riley Laychuk/CBC) What happened between Ryan’s visit to the ER and his death has been the subject of investigations by both Prairie Mountain Health and the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba, to which his mother filed a complaint about the conduct of the two nurses who convicted Ryan . Internal documents from separate investigations into his death revealed:
Ryan never saw a doctor during his initial visit to the hospital, nor when police returned him there about four hours later. No attempt was made to contact Ryan’s mother before the police were called. Nursing staff used the wrong form to medically release Ryan for custody, due to the absence of a policy in situations like Ryan’s. He was not violent or aggressive towards patients or hospital staff and was not considered a danger to others before the police were called. Nursing and triage staff at the hospital did not receive training on the Detention of Intoxicated Persons Act as part of their general orientation or orientation.
“I couldn’t break free” from addiction
Brenda Eamer told CBC News she and Ryan went to the hospital in February 2021 because she knew he needed help. He struggled with an addiction to alcohol for over a decade. He got sober in 2017, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, addiction took over again. “He couldn’t get rid of it,” his mother said. “He was struggling in the days before he went to the ER.” Eamer graduated from Crocus Plains Regional High School in Brandon in 1993. He later earned a degree in psychology so he could devote his life to helping people, his mother says. (Submitted by Brenda Eamer) Her son loved meeting people, Brenda said, and earned a degree in psychology so he could devote his life to helping people. He got a job at a personal care home, where the seniors loved him and called him “Vick” — his middle name — because he was a friend to them, Brenda said. His later years were spent as a child support worker, helping troubled children come to terms with their pasts. But when he was 24, he lost a very good friend and “never got over that,” his mother said. Addiction eventually took over. He was the older of her two children. Now Brenda and her daughter, Melanie, are left to figure out life without him. “It was always the three of us,” Brenda said. Eamer with his sister Melanie Corbey at his birthday lunch in January 2021, just weeks before he died. (Submitted by Brenda Eamer)
Nursing School Review
In April 2021, Brenda filed a complaint with the College of Registered Nurses against the two nurses who played a role in Ryan’s care and the decision to call the police. The college did not punish them, according to a decision sent to Brenda on January 12 of this year. Instead, a letter of guidance was added to both their files “to address inadequate client-centred care and related professional responsibilities and obligations”. Prairie Mountain Health’s review found questions remain about assessments done to rule out head injury as the cause of death. But the college’s investigation found that required triage assessments were completed and a comprehensive post-fall assessment was carried out by nurses. A nurse expert hired by the college’s grievance investigation committee to provide an independent opinion on the removal of an intoxicated patient from an emergency room said a doctor should medically clear a patient before police are called. An assessment should have been made to ensure the patient had no immediate health care needs other than intoxication, the expert told the panel. He said Brenda should have been called to the police and that using the Detention of Intoxicated Persons Act should be “a last resort, after all other options for managing the patient have been considered,” according to the commission’s final report. A college spokesman said he could not comment on specific cases, but that letters of guidance can be used “to address potentially undesirable behavior” identified in an investigation. One of the nurses, in her reply letter, wrote that she deeply regrets that they did not call Brenda before calling the police.
Prairie Mountain Health apologizes
Prairie Mountain Health has launched its own review into Ryan’s case. “Please accept our sincere apologies for your son’s experience while seeking rehab services,” wrote Amy Foster, the regional health authority’s patient safety and quality improvement coordinator, in a letter sent to Brenda Eamer on March 25, 2022. The review found that nurses improperly used a form to medically assess Ryan’s suitability for police custody. It was never intended to assess anyone coming to the hospital for treatment, the health authority said. Instead, it was intended to assess people brought by the police to the hospital for a medical examination before being taken to a cell to riot. The health district pledged to take action on several things to prevent a death like Ryan’s from happening again, including:
Creating a permanent position for a mental health liaison to work in the emergency room in Brandon. Provide additional training to staff on patient triage. Update policies related to supporting substance-using clients and provide clear guidance on how to assess and treat those who are intoxicated and seeking withdrawal services. Suspension of use of assessment by nurses used to medically release Ryan for custody.
In a statement to CBC News, Prairie Mountain Health CEO Brian Schoonbaert said he could not comment on the specifics of the case, but said the health authority is “very…
