Coroner fumes over 'ambush'

By DICK CHAPMAN, TORONTO SUN A lawyer for the Hospital for Sick Children was admonished yesterday by Ontario's deputy chief coroner for appearing to "ambush" an inquest with surprise evidence.

Dr. Jim Cairns issued his tongue-lashing at the inquest into the death of Lisa Shore, 10, of Thornhill, who died Oct. 22, 1998.

She'd been admitted the previous night with severe pain due to a rare condition known as reflex sympathetic dystrophy.

The inquest has heard that a doctor's orders for hourly monitoring of Lisa's vital signs, which he typed into the hospital's computer system, never reached nurses on the child's ward.

A veritable explosion of objections erupted yesterday after a hospital employee tried to explain possible reasons the heartbeat and breathing monitor in Lisa's room may have failed to sound alarms.

After dismissing the six-member jury, Cairns scolded hospital counsel Patrick Hawkins for not giving advance notice of a new theory, then ordered him to produce a written summary and get independent equipment testing in the U.S.

"What I do not appreciate is being suddenly bamboozled by something we have had absolutely no idea of," Cairns said testily. "Unless you've got a different explanation, I consider this an ambush of the process."

After Hawkins offered the excuse that Stephan Bauer, head of the hospital's biomedical engineering department, was only proposing a theory, Cairns postponed Bauer's testimony and shut down the inquest until Friday.

Bauer had been testifying about a Colometric monitor, which counts heart beats and breaths.