Mayor Nolan Crouse says a city review of the circumstances surrounding the death of an Alberta 55 Plus Winter Games participant Saturday is meant to ensure proper procedures were followed, not assign blame.
Tragedy struck the games Saturday morning after Marvin Klein died of a heart attack after collapsing on the ice during a hockey game.
“Whenever you do a games like this or an event, when there’s a tragedy, you want to make sure you are able to learn from it,” Crouse said. “It’s not a review looking for something negative. Everybody’s trained to be in alert mode in an emergency. How did we do?”
According to director of promotions Tracy Annicchiarico, the 68-year-old goaltender from the zone 4 65-plus team suddenly fell to the ice while the play was at the other end of the rink during this morning’s game
“He was in goal and he just dropped,” Annicchiarico said.
She said the wife of Klein’s roommate, a registered nurse, rushed to the player’s aid, as did games’ volunteers and Servus Credit Union Place employees. CPR was administered. Annicchiarico confirmed Servus Place does have an automated external defibrillator, which was used.
“I’m not sure whether it was our responders or the ER responders or the lifeguards at the facility, but it was used before he was transported.”
An ambulance arrived about 10 minutes after the goalie collapsed. He was rushed to hospital but died a couple of hours later.
“It is a tragedy for the games. It’s something you never anticipate and certainly hope that never happens,” she added. “We would like to extend our extreme deep-felt sympathies to this family.”
Crouse has asked Chris Jardine, general manager of community and protective services, to conduct the review, asking him also to look into ambulance response times.
“The province does the dispatch and ambulance service, so how did the dispatch work? How quick was the response?”
Crouse was quick to add he is simply looking to see if the response could have been better.
“There’s nothing that’s come across to me that everything wasn’t handled very well by the volunteers and staff,” Crouse said. “Early indications are [the response] was just outstanding.”
This is not the first time a competitor has died during the Alberta 55 Plus Winter Games. During the 2009 games in Lethbridge, a table tennis player passed away.
