Police to investigate emergency medical response in Good Samaritan’s death

Earlier this month, Tom Raczynski, who lives in the area, said he heard screams that drew him out of his home that night.

“He was lying there complaining he was hurting and they kept saying he was faking,” Raczynski said of paramedics and police at the scene.

“The one paramedic kept saying ‘oh you’re a good actor,’” Raczynski said. “I just thought it was disgusting. Like somebody’s shot, you take him in to the hospital, you don’t leave him lying there.”

On Wednesday, Raczynski said he was appalled by how long it took paramedics to treat Al-Hasnawi.

“That poor kid lied there for an hour and a half,” he said.

“This boy could have been alive in my eyes if they would have did it right away.”

Niagara Regional police will conduct the investigation, said Hamilton police Const. Jerome Stewart

“The Hamilton Police Service believe a criminal investigation is warranted based on the review of the preliminary evidence,” Stewart said in a statement.

A Niagara Regional police spokeswoman said they were asked late last week by Hamilton police to investigate the care given by Hamilton Paramedic Services the night Al-Hasnawi died.

“It’s about time,” Raczynski said when he heard about the criminal investigation.

Raczynski said Niagara police have yet to contact him, but Hamilton police brought him down to the station for a statement about the paramedics’ behaviour about a week and a half ago.

Russell Crocker, deputy chief of the Hamilton Paramedic Service, said two days after the 19-year-old died that the service launched an investigation into the incident as a result of information it received.

A Hamilton paramedic spokeswoman said the service will pause its internal investigation now that a police investigation is underway.

Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Police to investigate emergency medical response in Good Samaritan’s death

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