Errors in UVic's response led to fatal overdose of student, independent report details

Emily Fagan · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 03, 2025 1:30 PM EDT | Last Updated: 8 minutes ago

An autarkic study detailing the "choices and mistakes" that led to the overdose decease of a first-year University of Victoria pupil successful January 2024 has been released by the university, casting caller airy connected the circumstances of the incidental and her parent's combat for transparency successful the twelvemonth since.

The report, written by erstwhile Abbotsford constabulary main Bob Rich, recovered that determination were "several points" connected the nighttime erstwhile Sidney McIntyre-Starko overdosed that, had the effect been different, she would person apt survived. Another pupil who overdosed alongside McIntyre-Starko successful the residence gathering was revived by naloxone. 

"Sidney, her family, the different students who overdosed, and the students who tried to help, were not decently cared for that night," says the report.

"The lone mode guardant is to look hard astatine what happened and larn by putting successful spot much training, rigorous processes, and safeguards truthful this calamity is not repeated."

McIntyre-Starko suffered a cardiac apprehension owed to fentanyl poisoning and died successful infirmary days aft the overdose, according to her parents.

The reappraisal comes arsenic a effect of UVic's committedness to guidelines released by the provincial authorities past August, aft media reports into McIntyre-Starko's decease sparked nationalist outcry implicit however assemblage officials and field information responded. It besides included 18 recommendations focused connected preventing and improving effect mechanisms for aboriginal overdoses connected campus.

According to the report, McIntyre-Starko's parents judge that their girl would person lived if field information officers had provided her with respiratory support, the study says. CBC News has contacted the assemblage and the student's household for comment.

The officers who responded to the scene, who according to the study had ne'er responded to a suspected overdose, failed to announcement what students contiguous astatine the country aboriginal reported – that McIntyre-Starko was exhibiting the 3 cardinal symptoms of an overdose: reduced consciousness, depressed breathing, and pinpoint pupils. 

It was lone 9 minutes aft field information arrived, erstwhile officers were told McIntyre-Starko and different pupil were apt suffering from a cause overdose, that they administered naloxone, Rich's reappraisal details. It goes connected to accidental that McIntyre-Starko's parents judge if information had realized this much rapidly and provided naloxone sooner, she would not person died.

Officers did not person instrumentality to supply oxygen successful effect to a suspected overdose – thing the study says UVic has since changed.

The study besides outlines galore hurdles the household faced successful accessing accusation astir the circumstances of McIntyre-Starko's death. 

On the nighttime of the overdose, the 18-year-old's parents were not alerted by assemblage officials that McIntyre-Starko had been taken to a adjacent hospital. A student who witnessed archetypal responders attending to McIntyre-Starko alerted her brother, who was besides a pupil astatine UVic astatine that time, the reappraisal says. 

It took "several hours" for McIntyre-Starko's member to find her aft reaching the hospital. When helium did, she had been placed connected a ventilator and infirmary unit told him she was successful "very superior condition."

The member alerted his parents. However, by this time, it was excessively precocious for McIntyre-Starko's mother, who was successful Vancouver and would person to question to Victoria by ferry the adjacent morning. The teen's father, meanwhile, was retired of the country. 

McIntyre-Starko's family sought answers successful the months that followed her death, including an close timeline connected the events surrounding the overdose. After "lengthy" exchanges with field officials, the household was told to taxable a Freedom of Information (FOI) petition for the accusation they were looking for. The household met with UVic president Kevin Hall – a gathering that "ended poorly," according to the report.

Ultimately, the household spoke to a newsman from the Vancouver Sun for a communicative that sparked a flurry of media attention, nationalist outcry, and the instauration of a provincial committee to analyse post-secondary overdose prevention and response.

Students, household 'not decently cared for' in aftermath of overdoses, study finds

The study provides a elaborate timeline of the nighttime McIntyre-Starko died, based connected interviews with much than 50 people, including students, UVic staff, archetypal respondedrs, and the teen's family. 

It was the archetypal clip McIntyre-Starko had tried unregulated thoroughfare drugs, according to the report. She and 2 different first-year students surviving successful residence successful January 2024 had planned to instrumentality the drugs – which students aboriginal said were recovered by a person – and ticker a movie together.

Shortly aft ingesting the drugs, a pulverization that contained a premix of cocaine and fentanyl, McIntyre-Starko and different pupil mislaid consciousness. The study says students called field information and archetypal responders to the scene. It explains, initially, the 3rd pupil who had taken the drugs denied that they had taken thing – which led field information officers to judge McIntyre-Starko and the different pupil were experiencing seizures. However, the pupil aboriginal said determination was a "high probability" they had consumed drugs.

After McIntyre-Starko was taken to the hospital, Rich's study says first responders near students to ticker implicit the 2 others who had taken drugs. They were throwing up and feeling "very unwell," prompting different telephone to 911, astatine which constituent the brace was taken to hospital wherever they were checked by aesculapian staff.

University officials did not conscionable to sermon however to respond until the adjacent morning. Officials projected it was excessively precocious – oregon perchance the hospital's work – to alert the parents, and faxed a missive days aboriginal for the infirmary to present to them.

Although UVic unit had been alert of galore caller overdoses successful and astir campus, the emails that went retired to students aft McIntyre-Starko's decease did not accidental that the unregulated cause proviso adjacent UVic was presently toxic and unsafe, which the study says "was the superior intent of those emails." The emails besides did not accidental that a pupil had died, the study continues. 

Changes proposed

The report's 18 recommendations for UVic include designated assemblage officials to oversee and analyse captious incidents connected campus, the instauration of situation communications and household liaison roles, further first-aid grooming and resources, and implementing and advertizing an amnesty argumentation for those calling for assistance with a suspected overdose.

Prior to the report, UVic had made immoderate changes since January 2024 – including opioid exigency kits with nasal naloxone connected each pupil residence floor, grooming to usage the kits for each pupil residence staff, hiring a trauma counsellor for residence staff, and hiring an serviceman experienced successful archetypal assistance to bid field information staff.

However, Rich noted that the contented is not solved, "nor is it static."

"Sidney's beingness was afloat of hope, promise, imaginable and love," the study says. "Nothing successful this reappraisal tin instrumentality distant the symptom of that loss."