Witness from Fraser trial says her family hasn’t received help they need

The most frustrating part of it all is they’ve received no help from the province’s Crime Victim Assistance Program, which has denied them twice, forcing the family to shell out thousands of dollars for counselling and other treatments.

“When I put my application for the [Crime Victim Assistance Program] benefits, just to get some counselling and my prescriptions covered, the physiotherapy, I was told that we were declined because basically the murder had already happened when we arrived on scene, and yeah we assisted because we restrained the assailant.”

No one from the Crime Victim Assistance Program was made available for an interview. However, in a written response sent to Nielson, the assistance program notes “it seems that the offense of murder had already taken place prior to Ms. Nielson’s involvement and thus Ms. Nielson cannot be considered to have been attempting to prevent an offense.”

In the letter, the province did not consider nielson a Good Samaritan, adding “she did not contemplate, or have to use, force against the suspect during arrest. Thus, her actions did not put her at risk of harm.”

“It’s just not right,” noted Nielson. “Something needs to be changed. I’m really hoping that somebody sees this and they make some changes and say ‘this is wrong.’”

Nielson isn’t optimistic anything will change, even though her doctor in Grand Prairie says she’ll require more surgeries on her hip.

“He told me your leg is done. You’ve got to get it done. So I had surgery, got my leg repaired and within a couple days it was ripping open again,” says Nielson. “He said it had torn so bad and done so much damage that they couldn’t even suture it the way you normally suture muscles.”

Nielson says receiving no support to this point sends the wrong message to anyone who’s thinking about jumping into action as a Good Samaritan.

by Chad Klassen

Witness from Fraser trial says her family hasn’t received help they need

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