Have you read anything about the escape from Stalingrad in WWII? We get winters like that in Prince George. The winter of 2022 was bitterly cold, and in the worst part of the cold snap temperatures dropped to about -40 C for about 5 days right before Christmas. This was also just after COVID, and was a record setting year for toxic drug overdoses.
When all you can care about is your next high, things like dressing for the weather become secondary. Preparing yourself to be out in the cold is the most basic of precautions you must take to live and work in this type of weather. Frostbite can occur in as little as 15 minutes of exposure to the outside air.
The opioid drug addicts would routinely get high outside during this 5 day period, be inappropriately dressed, and suffered the kind of frostbite the likes of which I had never before seen in my career. Dozens of them could not be convinced to come in out of the cold, despite extra emergency shelters being open, some still chose to camp out on the street. First responders walked the streets trying to convince them to come in out of the cold, but some would not. Paramedics are not allowed to kidnap people, if someone refuses service, I had to walk away. The RCMP of course cannot arrest you unless you are, or they have reason to suspect, you have committed a crime.
This was the night that I decided I hated Safe Supply, and the safe injection sites. I had already done multiple fatalities at the front door or the back door of this place, as apparently the province’s compassion keeps banker’s hours. For the most part the staff at these places were professional, but every now and then you would get a real piece of work, who would try and interfere with transport of the patient to the hospital. On this call, it was such an egregious breach of patient care, I wrote a complaint through BCEHS, nothing was done about it though, as far as I know.
We responded to a 25 year old male, who had overdosed on opioids. When we arrived the patient was already agitated. Many users mix meth with fentanyl to intensify the high. When you use Narcan to reverse the opioid, all that’s left on board is the meth, and this drug can make people unpredictable. The first thing I noticed was that all of his fingers were black from the second knuckle down.
He did not want to go to the hospital (you’d be surprised how many times I had to sell people on this idea), but to me that was unthinkable. This young man was already an addict, if the frostbite wasn’t treated right away he could lose both of his hands, if they weren’t lost to him already. Any other clinician of any stripe should have known that, this is basic first aid. I started my sales pitch to my patient, when one of the staff members told the patient he could stay there if he wanted, and that he didn’t have to go to the hospital. There is no line to some people where aid becomes enabling.
Yeah, I was not letting that happen. I have no idea what possessed this person to think that the loss of both hands would be an improvement in this patient’s life, I do not care to speculate. The patient latched onto staying with this staff member and proceeded to become more and more agitated, until he had to be tackled by the RCMP when he started throwing the furniture. The whole time this was happening, this woman yelled at the RCMP and treated them like the Gestapo, for doing what should have been obvious was the right thing to do, get this patient to the hospital to save his hands.
I have no idea what possessed this person to do this. Perhaps she was just the secretary or something, but this wasn’t the first time I had to argue with staff at the safe injection site about this, this was just the worst one.
I saw many patients that winter with 3rd degree frostbite in their fingers and toes, sometimes even in their nose and cheeks. I heard there was a surgeon at the local hospital who had a nervous breakdown because he did so many amputations due to frostbite on the street people that winter. I hate looking back knowing that no one knows about this. That this happened and nothing was reported in the news about it, that no one knows this story, and nothing was done. All of the reports we filed that winter on what was going on, where did they go? Surely, I would have thought it would be obvious by now, some of these people cannot look after themselves. How can you help someone without enough sense to come in out of the cold?
