Man in Stanton rampage freed
Incident led to changes that now permit hospital security guards to intervene when patients are violent
John McFadden
Northern News Services
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A man who sent doctors and nurses scurrying for cover after going on a violent rampage in the emergency room at Stanton Territory Hospital last November, has been freed from jail after a judge sentenced him to time served last week.
Tylor Nataway, 24, was handed the sentence in territorial court by Judge Robert Gorin after earlier pleading guilty to mischief under $5,000 for the hospital incident Nov. 20. He also pleaded guilty to a second count of mischief for breaking a glass door at the Jan Stirling building downtown on Feb. 9, and assault with a weapon for scalding a man by throwing a cup of hot coffee in his face in a sixth floor office at Centre Square Tower on Feb. 20.
Nataway was also given two years probation for the crimes. He has spent 55 days in pre-trial custody.
The man was also put under a peace bond, meaning he cannot have contact with two people that he has threatened, including his former foster mother and a doctor who no longer works in the NWT.
Court heard that Nataway suffers from several health problems, including legal blindness, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and schizophrenia.
Gorin said he wished he could order Nataway into psychiatric treatment and force him to take his medication but said he is unable to do so.
"I am very concerned that if his behaviour continues, somebody is going to get hurt," Gorin said. "But criminal law is a blunt instrument when dealing with (mental health) cases like this."
Crown prosecutor Marc Lecorre told the court that, according to hospital staff, Nataway was an aggressive and agitated patient the night he ransacked the emergency room. He said Nataway knocked over and broke several pieces of equipment and cracked a window.
"Patients were told to close the doors to the rooms they were in, and two visitors in the waiting room were told to run," Lecorre said.
The nurses and doctors called RCMP to report the ransacking of their emergency ward and then they locked themselves in a room, added Lecorre.
He also read aloud in court a victim impact statement from a nurse, with 25 years experience, who was working in the emergency department that night. She wrote she was terrified and was left anxious and stressed. She stated she had yet to returned to work in the emergency department since that night and that she is still afraid to do so. She stated that she saw Nataway swing a metal object at a doctor's head.
The incident has left her in a constant state of paranoia and has lost her appetite for eating, the woman stated. She blamed all of that on Nataway and what she called his violent behaviour.
Defence lawyer Peter Harte told the court that Nataway went to the emergency department that night because he was having a psychiatric meltdown.
"But after the incident he never was taken back to the hospital for an assessment," Harte said.
He pointed out Nataway's troubled upbringing, telling the court he was in the care of social services from the time he was five years old until he was 19.
"He wore out four vacuum cleaners, using them constantly in his home," Harte said.
"He has obsessive-compulsive disorder. He ran up a huge water bill at his foster home by constantly washing his bedding and clothing. He does not belong in the criminal justice system. He fell through the cracks."
Lydia Bardak, executive director of the John Howard Society, was in the courtroom for the sentencing hearing. She said she sees cases like Nataway's all too often in the NWT.
"By not investing in early-childhood intervention, family re-unification, disability support and supportive housing we are investing in the correctional facilities instead," said Bardak.
That has led to the "warehousing" of the mentally ill in the NWT, she said.
After the rampage occured, it was revealed that security staff at Stanton were not allowed to physically intervene when there was a violent patient. Nurses said that was leaving them to fend for themselves. Security guards at the hospital are now allowed to physically restrain violent patients after a policy change in late February.
