Home page

Text size

E-mail this page

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Emergency room physician Dr. Anna Reid spoke at a coroner's inquest Thursday to explain her decision to release Karen Lander from hospital hours after the middle-aged woman had threatened suicide.

Lander came to Stanton Territorial Hospital by ambulance March 12 after RCMP found her at home intoxicated, threatening to kill herself and with a shoe lace around her neck.

The day following her release, Lander was shot four times by police after a four-hour standoff that ended in her exiting a house on Glick Court holding a rifle.

A coroner's inquest into Lander's death on March 14, 2012 began Monday and is expected to continue until March 6. The purpose of the inquest is for the jury to make recommendations that may prevent similar deaths in the future. The jury started with six members but was reduced to five Thursday due to a medical emergency.

Reid, now president of the Canadian Medical Association, released Lander on March 13 at about 4 a.m. after assessing her. During that assessment, Reid said, Lander appeared sober and denied uttering threats or putting a shoe lace around her neck.

"At that point I did not feel she was suicidal," she said. "I felt she was safe to be discharged home."

Reid said she saw cases like Lander's two or three times a week at the hospital.

Lander was previously diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and had a history of hospital visits for threatening suicide, according to testimony from medical professionals and a family member of Lander's.

Lander would threaten suicide most often when she was drinking and usually denied having those thoughts after sobering up. The incident on March 12 kept with this pattern, Reid said.

"There wasn't anything different in this particular interaction," she said.

Also, had Lander made a clear suicide attempt she would have been admitted, Reid said. But there was no indication Lander had used the shoe lace to actually harm herself and thus was considered a suicide threat and not an attempt.

Lander had previously tried to get help for her addictions and other issues. She attended a number of withdrawal programs and was taking counselling at the Tree of Peace Friendship Centre.

After a time of being sober she always went back to drinking though, said her cousin Sonia Akana. She faced difficulties in her past and drinking numbed that, she said.

In the days leading up to her death Lander was drinking heavily every day and smoking marijuana, said Lander's family doctor Shireen Mansouri, who saw her March 6. Mansouri appeared at the inquest by prerecorded video due to medical reasons.

Lander wasn't doing well, Mansouri said, but she was no worse than in any other of her down periods. There was nothing out of the ordinary, she said.

"I never expected she would do anything like that," she said, referring to her confrontation with police.

The night before her death, Akana said, she remembers her cousin joking about suicide, something she did often.

"'I'm going to make the news. I'm going to make a big thing about this," Akana recounted her cousin saying. "I was very concerned ... I just hope it doesn't happen again to anybody else."

We welcome your opinions. Click here to e-mail a letter to the editor.