Struggling to breathe, heart attack killed Headingley inmate: pathologist

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This article was published 07/09/2023 (778 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

William Ahmo, the Headingley Correctional Centre inmate critically injured during a violent 2021 confrontation with jail staff, died from a heart attack after he was left struggling to breathe, a trial heard Thursday.

“The cause of death was a hypoxic ischemic brain injury, which means that the brain has been injured due to a lack of oxygen and blood supply due to cardio or respiratory arrest,” pathologist Dr. Charles Littman testified in a Winnipeg courtroom.

“In other words, his heart stopped and he stopped breathing.”

Ahmo, 45, died in hospital Feb. 14, 2021 — seven days after he was injured in the common area of his unit during a prolonged standoff with corrections officers.

Corrections officer Robert Jeffrey Morden, 44, who led the emergency response unit team that ultimately took Ahmo down, is on trial charged with criminal negligence causing death and failing to provide necessities of life.

Jail video previously played for court showed Morden and six or seven other response officers stormed the unit and fired several chemical irritant projectiles at Ahmo as the inmate stood on a second-floor walkway.

Ahmo, brandishing a broken mop handle, advanced on the officers, who forcefully took him to the floor. Ahmo screamed and flailed as a half-dozen officers piled on top of him, forcing the inmate’s face and neck to the floor.

Restrained and prone on the floor, he told officers more than 20 times: “I can’t breathe.”

Ahmo, unmoving and appearing unresponsive, was placed in a restraint chair, after which he was found with no pulse and a “code red” was issued.

Paramedics resuscitated Ahmo, but he later died in a Winnipeg hospital.

Ahmo was in an “extremely agitated” state and exhausted when he was forced into a prone position for several minutes, with his chest pressed to the floor, making it difficult for him to breathe, Littman said.

Ahmo had an enlarged heart, was obese and had been hit with pepper spray prior to the takedown, all of which would have compromised his ability to breathe effectively, the doctor said.

“The fact he is very agitated with increased muscular activity requires him to breath deeper and more frequently,” Littman said. “There was pressure placed on the chest and the abdomen so that the chest can’t move effectively.”

Unable to breathe, Ahmo would have been more likely to start struggling, he testified.

Once Ahmo’s heart stopped, paramedics would have had no more than five or six minutes to resuscitate him before he suffered irreversible brain damage, Littman said.

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Ahmo had no drugs in his system other than those administered while he was in hospital, the pathologist said.

Defence lawyer Richard Wolson asked Littman if Ahmo, once restrained, should have been sedated.

“Yes, I believe once the individual has been restrained, if he continues to struggle, sedation is necessary,” Littman said.

On Wednesday, Andrew Barbour, a correctional officer who trains members of the Headingley jail’s emergency response unit, said sedation is not an option under current emergency response protocols.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca

Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter

Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.

Every piece of reporting Dean produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.