Kurtis Champagne’s life as a rage-filled alcoholic, tormented by years of struggling with his mental demons and the violence they brought out in him, ended tragically Feb. 13 in a Prince George hospital room, hours after he smashed his head repeatedly against the wall of his cell at Prince George Regional Correctional Centre.
Cassie Savage admits her 37-year-old brother was no saint. He was put in jail for physically assaulting his girlfriend days earlier at their apartment and already had a criminal past of domestic violence and drunk driving.
Savage says his suicidal thoughts were already documented, having twice been admitted to UHNBC during the 4 ½ days he was held in custody, but still he was allowed to hurt himself again in his cell to the point he sustained a blunt-force trauma brain injury which was the cause of his death.
Champagne was arrested early in the morning of Feb. 9 and was brought to Prince George Regional Correctional Centre. He spoke to his mother for the last time from jail two days before his death and the call was cut off suddenly when he became agitated. According to a Northern Health social worker who spoke to the family, he was found unconscious and not breathing in his jail cell at about noon on Feb. 13. He was rushed to hospital and put on life-support but there was nothing that could be done to save him.
“They called my mom around 7:30 at night and told her that he was there, after he’d been there for quite some time and that was it,” said Savage. “They took him off life support about 11:20.
“The neurosurgeon for all of BC that was on call said it was one of the worst CT scans he’d ever seen.”
According to Savage, Champagne’s girlfriend told the arresting officer that he was talking about killing himself. Savage says if that was known to the authorities, she asks why he was allowed to repeatedly bash his head against a wall, especially after he’d twice been taken to the hospital for the same reason.
“It’s absolute crickets,” Savage said. “We just want to know what happened at the (jail) facility. Was there a failing getting mental health support? Did he slip through the cracks? What kinds of things was he saying? Nobody from the facility has even contacted us and there’s supposed to be a family liaison officer. Not even to acknowledge him or the situation or acknowledge us, just feels really cold and dehumanizing and everyone wants to sweep it under the rug.
“I understand there needs to be repercussions when people do things wrong but at the same time if there is a pattern of the same thing happening over and over again at what point do we step in or the government step in or the ministry or agency step in and say obviously what we’re doing is not working.”
Savage contacted the Independent Investigations Office, which was not aware of Champagne’s death. Neither she nor her family have spoken to anybody from Prince George Regional Correctional Centre or BC Corrections and they want answers.
“The social workers told us that between his last hospital visit and his arrest there were two or three additional hospital visits where he had to be seen by a doctor and got scanned because he was doing the same thing — hitting his head against the walls and the floor,” she said.
“He was getting these opportunities to do it again and again, that’s kind of where our questions are, why wasn’t he put on high watch that was being observed on CCTV? They could have had him on watch but we don’t know. At what point do our systems intervene and help?”
In an email from the Ministry of Public Safety and the Attorney General, the province confirmed Champagne died Feb. 13 and that BC Corrections and the BC Coroners Service are investigating his death and how it happened. But due to privacy laws the release of any details of the coroner’s investigation will not be released because they are considered private health information.
“BC Corrections can confirm that in this case, senior management spoke with family members on two separate occasions to provide information as appropriate while investigations are underway and offer their condolences,” according to the ministry’s email sent to The Citizen.
“Though privacy laws prevent BC Corrections from releasing further details, BC Corrections can confirm that both BC Corrections and the Provincial Health Services Authority Correctional Health Services team, who is responsible for health care services for individuals within custody, extensively screen every person entering custody to help identify seriously ill individuals and prevent self-harm and suicide.
“This includes being seen by a nurse and mental health screener within 24 hours of admission into custody and ongoing health screenings and care as required for anyone identified as being at risk.”
Savage said it was obvious the mental health supports he needed to turn his life around were not there for him and he continued in a downward spiral. Champagne had alcohol-induced psychosis and drank to the point where his internal organs and digestive tract were damaged and he was excreting blood. She first noticed he had a drinking problem at her wedding reception in 2019 when he requested a full bottle from the bartender rather than just a glass.
“He was severely alcoholic,” said Savage.
“He got his first DUI in 2018 but that wasn’t anything that set him back drastically, he was still working and functioning. But from 2019 downwards it was a steady decline. Looking back on it now it was very quick.”
There were moments of clarity when he talked about hitting rock-bottom and was indicating he wanted to get into treatment at the Baldy Hughes Therapeutic Community and Farm, but the urge to drink again was too strong for him to resist.
“He couldn’t have just one sip,” said Savage. “It was a whole bottle and he would go on these days-long binges. Before he got arrested he went on a five-day binge and it was a terrible five days of him abusing his girlfriend.
“When the alcohol came out it turned to rage which is what he got arrested for the most and he never got proper intervention for that. He needed some kind of mental health intervention, but there’s a stigma around men getting mental health help, and I hate that. You could never convince him to talk to anyone.”
Champagne grew up in Prince George with Cassie, their older brother Mike and their mom. Although she was only 10 months younger than Kurtis they were never close, she said. She recognized early on he had anger management issues but nothing was done to try to correct the problem.
He loved the outdoors and had a passion for fishing. As a kid growing up in the Pineview neighbourhood he was into painting Warhammer action figures and enjoyed skateboarding with his friends. He was always trying to build things or fix motors. He got as far as Grade 11 at Prince George Secondary School but was expelled for smoking pot one too many times. Their parents divorced when Savage was three and her dad died when she and Champagne were in their early 20s.
Champagne’s alcoholism ruined friendships and during his last drinking binge he expressed his regrets that his friends had moved on with their lives and were having families of their own while the chaos of his addiction kept him from following a similar path.
Champagne was good with his hands, working as a house builder and roofer, and his employers held him in high esteem. But eventually it got to the point where he couldn’t get through a day without reaching for the bottle and he lost his job.
“His last boss said, 'I don’t want to fire him but I have no choice.’ Kurtis was his best worker and we’ve heard that from quite a few of his employers,” Savage said.
Savage fully supports Prince George psychiatrist Barb Kane’s push for the province to build a mental health hospital in northern BC and she wants more health care dollars targeted to address a problem that appears to be worsening.
“I do believe he needed to be in jail for what he had done but if he had been getting mandatory treatment while he was in jail it would have been a gamechanger for him.” Savage said.
She wants her brother’s death to serve as a wake-up call that society can longer afford to turn a blind eye to the increasing epidemic of mental health issues and substance abuse that’s killing people from all walks of life.
“People have such a callous disregard for the lives of people who are addicts and the transient population. That’s not how they want to live, somewhere along the way there were system failures, lack of assistance, and ultimately they’re the ones paying for it,” said Savage.
“It’s not that they want to steal or beg or prostitute for a living or scam, that’s not the way that anyone wants to live. You have to take the stigma out of seeking mental health treatment. A lot of people in our community need to take away that callous perspective that addicts are addicts by choice.
“I’m relatively unemotional about it because the brother that I knew and I cared for, he’s been gone a long time, but it’s still heartbreaking and sad to think about what could have been if he was given the right interventions and treatment.”
Cassie Savage wrote a letter to The Citizen outlining her concerns. Read it here.
