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 Blanket suffocates
autistic boy in Quebec
By Sean Gordon, Quebec bureau chief
June 20, 2008
Coroner recommends better safety
guidelines for weighted covers
MONTREAL–A Quebec coroner
investigating the suffocation death of a 9-year-old autistic boy is
recommending stiffer safety guidelines concerning weighted blankets
sometimes used to calm fitful children suffering from the condition.
The call for more judicious use of
the blankets – usually weighted with ball bearings or buckwheat
seeds – follows a two-month probe into the death of Gabriel Poirier.
He died in hospital last April, a day after being rolled into a
heavy cover "three or four times" by a teacher.
Gabriel, described by his parents
as a gentle child who was occasionally prone to verbal outbursts,
attended a school for disabled and special-needs children in
Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, 40 kilometres southeast of Montreal.
Coroner Catherine Rudel-Tessier's
investigation found that Gabriel, who weighed about 50 pounds, was
placed on his stomach with his arms at his side then wrapped from
head to toe in the 39-pound blanket. The boy was left for nearly 20
minutes.
Gabriel had been taken aside by one
of the two teachers in his class after being admonished twice for
excessive "vocalizing."
When the teacher, who had started a
timer, returned to check on Gabriel, he wasn't moving and had
slipped into unconsciousness. The report said he was listless and
his face "bluish."
In a report released yesterday,
Rudel-Tessier concluded his death was violent and preventable, and
questioned the therapeutic benefits of using the blankets, which she
said have not been scientifically established. She slammed the
guidelines for using the heavy blankets as insufficient and stressed
that they should be seen "as a preventive measure, and not as
punishment."
Rudel-Tessier said the covers
should only be used after consulting a medical professional as to
their appropriateness, that a child's head should never be covered,
they mustn't be left unsupervised, and should only be rolled up in
the blankets if a trained therapist is "constantly at their side."
Gabriel's father told a news
conference yesterday that the report's recommendations have only
added to his family's grief – they were originally told the boy had
died peacefully.
"It was pretty hard to hear what
happened," Gilles Poirier said, adding that "the only thing I want
is for things to change. ... I never want that to happen to anyone
again."
Gilles Poirier said he was aware
teachers had used the blankets in the past on his son, but "not in a
way that he couldn't get out."
Jean-Pierre Menard, a lawyer for
the boy's parents, said they want Education Minister Michelle
Courchesne to set up a legal framework that establishes how
restraints should be used in schools.
With files from The Canadian Press
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