Elisapie Pootoogook, this 61-year-old woman from Salluit, in Nord-du-Québec, who was found lifeless on November 13, 2021 on a construction site near Cabot Square, in downtown Montreal, has probably succumbed to a heart attack. It was a natural death, concludes the coroner’s report on the death, which was released in mid-June.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
The coroner, the Dr Louis Normandin, explains that Mr.me Pootoogook had been flown to Montreal on November 3 due to symptoms that may resemble a myocardial infarction. She underwent examinations for three days in a Montreal hospital.
“She is discharged on November 6, 2021 with medication and an appointment scheduled for November 9 to clarify the cause of iron deficiency anemia,” reads the coroner’s report. “She was admitted to the Ullivik reception center in Montreal on November 6, before her planned return to Nunavik after the exam on the 9th. As soon as she arrived, Ms.me Pootoogook leaves the center, leaves personal effects and medication there and does not return. »
She will not appear for her medical examination on November 9.
“On November 10, around 10:30 a.m., she was seen in Cabot Park, at the exit of the Atwater metro, and at 5:30 p.m., she was expelled from this metro because she was sleeping there, relates the report. She returns to the street. On November 12, she was seen alive by a patrol officer from the Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) in the area. »
The next morning, a man living on the seventh floor of a nearby building calls for help when he sees the lifeless body of Elisapie Pootoogook on the gravel of a construction site. It was the SPVM agent who saw her the day before who formally identified her.
Mme Pootoogook is known for chronic active alcoholism, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, smoking, epilepsy, and severe undernutrition.
the coroner Louis Normandin
“During numerous previous stays in Montreal for medical appointments, Ms.me Pootoogook never misses the opportunity to run away from the reception center where he lives and to wander near the Atwater metro station without giving any news, or decides to go to a shelter for Native women. She is considered capable of deciding her whereabouts and, despite all their efforts, the workers who know her are unable to obtain her cooperation,” wrote the coroner.
Epilepsy
To explain the death, the coroner excludes alcoholic intoxication or the accidental use of street drugs, following toxicological analyses. He notes that M.me Pootoogook had been off his epilepsy medication for several days.
He therefore believes that an epileptic seizure could be the cause of death, or a sudden malignant cardiac arrhythmia, which may have occurred given the recent diagnosis of myocardial infarction.
The death of Elisapie Pootoogook caused a stir last fall, with many speakers denouncing the lack of services for the indigenous homeless, in particular shelters where the consumption of alcohol is accepted. A ceremony in his memory had been organized in Cabot Square.