WINNIPEG — A homeless man who died during a 34-hour wait in a hospital emergency room could have been dead for hours before his body was discovered, Manitoba’s medical examiner said Wednesday.
Thambirajah Balachandra told the inquest into Brian Sinclair’s death that rigor mortis had begun to set in when the double-amputee was declared dead on Sept. 21, 2008.
Security footage showed Sinclair moved his head around 5 p.m., 22 hours after he first arrived at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre emergency room, Balachandra said. Sinclair didn’t appear to move again and was declared dead just before midnight.
It’s likely Sinclair had been dead “for a couple of hours” before being found, Balachandra said. Rigor mortis, the stiffening of the body after death, usually takes some 12 hours to fully set in, but Balachandra said fever or seizure can hasten the onset.
Sinclair died after being referred to the hospital by a clinic doctor because he hadn’t urinated in 24 hours.
Sinclair was seen on the video approaching a triage aide when he first arrived in the emergency department and then sitting in his wheelchair in the waiting room. Someone approached a security guard 34 hours later with concerns about Sinclair’s condition and he was pronounced dead.