Pubdate: Thu, 22 Jan 2004
Source: Calgary Sun, The (CN AB)
Copyright: 2004 The Calgary Sun
Contact:  http://www.fyicalgary.com/calsun.shtml
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/67
Author: Kevin Martin

RELEASING OVERDOSE VICTIM SAID A MISTAKE

Fatal drug overdose victim Mickey Groves should not have been released from 
hospital on a frigid winter morning seven years ago, an emergency medicine 
expert said yesterday.

Dr. John Crosby said Groves should have been admitted to the Calgary 
General Hospital -- even if against his will -- instead of discharged.

Crosby said Groves' condition wasn't monitored long enough before he was 
allowed to leave the hospital in the early morning hours of March 17, 1997.

Groves, 24, was found on a park bench near the now demolished facility the 
following afternoon after he succumbed to a morphine and alcohol overdose.

Crosby told lawyer Clint Suntjens staff should have searched Groves when he 
was brought in by ambulance after being found in a drug-induced coma.

If they had, he said, Dr. John W.R. King would have discovered Groves was 
using long-lasting morphine which likely kicked in after anti-narcotic 
medicine wore off.

He said narcan, which reverses the effect of narcotics like morphine, lasts 
about an hour, while the drugs Groves had work for up to 12 hours.

"After an hour you could lapse back into coma again," he said.

Under cross-examination by King's lawyer, Daniel Gallagher, the former head 
of the Oakville, Ont. emergency department said he would have used force to 
search Groves, if needed.

Groves' mother, Bertha Russell, is seeking damages of $40,000 for 
bereavement under the Fatal Accidents Act. The trial continues.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman