The emergency room surgeon who treated a machete attack victim in 2022 told a B.C. Supreme Court judge in Prince George on Dec. 3 that he classified the patient a “top emergency.”
Orthopedic specialist Dr. Ali Bakkai, who was working Aug. 11, 2022 at the trauma unit in University Hospital of Northern B.C., testified by video as an expert witness before Justice John Gibb-Carsley. Kerridge Andrew Lowley, 49, and Dakota Rayn Keewatin, 31, are on trial for aggravated assault and break and enter.
The victim suffered multiple deep lacerations, nerve, muscle, tendon and bone injuries in the attack and required emergency surgery.
“This is in the advanced trauma, life support,” Bakkai explained under questioning from Crown prosecutor Andrea Norlund.
Bakkai said the risk to the patient, had he not received immediate treatment, included continuous bleeding, infection, stiffness and even shock and death. Bakkai said after the operation, there was no sign of infection and he predicted good outcomes for some of the injuries. However, he was concerned about nerve damage.
“For two reasons,” Bakkai said. “Because the nerve is responsible to move the muscles of the forearm and the hand and then, because the nerve is the slowest structure in our body that recovers after injury.”
Bakkai testified that he treated the man for about a week after surgery, until he was transferred for further treatment in the Fraser Health Authority region.
During cross-examination by Keewatin’s lawyer Jason LeBlond, Bakkai said he was unable to say how many times the victim had been struck by the machete.
Earlier, the court heard separate testimony from two of the Prince George RCMP officers who attended the crime scene at the Econo Lodge City Centre Inn.
Const. Jeremie St.-Pierre testified that he arrived at 5:38 p.m., parked and exited his police vehicle at the same time as the victim exited the lobby. St.-Pierre testified the man was “in shock and in denial of his injuries.”
St.-Pierre said he introduced himself as a police officer and said he was there to help the man.
“He immediately asked me to take him to the hospital, but he started to walk away from me onto his left,” St.-Pierre said. “The direction he was walking towards, seemed that he was walking towards the hospital. At that point, I tried to stop him to provide medical care.”
St.-Pierre, who was wearing gloves, grabbed the man’s right arm, which was soft and slack. The man collapsed and partially lost consciousness. St.-Pierre described the man’s hand as “shredded,” he had cuts to his bicep and hand, and his right kneecap was visible. St.-Pierre said he applied a tourniquet to his arm to stop the bleeding. An ambulance eventually rushed the man to hospital.
St.-Pierre said there were blood drips and smudges on the front door of the hotel and a pool of blood inside the lobby.
The court was shown a photograph that St.-Pierre took of the victim on a stretcher in the hospital. He said the victim told nurses he was unable to open his eyes because he had been sprayed with bear mace.
Const. Amritpal Dhadwal testified that he arrived at the Econo Lodge around 5:46 p.m. with another officer and observed fellow officers giving the victim first aid treatment in the parking lot.
Dhadwal knew that the person who made the call was Punjabi-speaking “because dispatch had a hard time understanding them,” and that he was the only Punjabi-speaking officer in attendance.
“The female was very distraught and she told me that that person came out of room 255, and she was not sure if there was still anyone inside that room,” Dhadwal said. “She said she didn't know what happened, but the victim came out of room 255.”
Dhadwal said he went upstairs to room 255 and noticed a machete on the floor in front of room 256. Nobody answered the door at room 255, but another officer opened it with a key. The first thing he noticed was the bear spray odour, which made it difficult to breathe. Then he saw blood on the bed. But nobody was inside.
It was the sixth day of a trial scheduled for nine days. The case continues Wednesday, Dec. 4.
