The head of the province's Child Death Review Unit (CDRU) is already aware that the case of a Prince George child will soon be on her desk.
Kellie Kilpatrick, director of the CDRU, said she's familiar with the general circumstances involved in the mysterious death of Brodie Sawatsky, 12, as he played on the grounds of Foothills elementary school during recess Friday Dec. 3.
"Parents are looking for those answers, communities are looking for those answers," she told The Citizen.
Kilpatrick left Prince George in 2006, where she had been a senior official with the Ministry of Children and Family Development, to help found the brand new division of the B.C. Coroners' Service.
The division investigates circumstances of death among those just born to just under 19 years of age.
"Some deaths are very straightforward but others are highly complex," said Kilpatrick. "I'm not sure what path this investigation is taking, but a coroner typically does rely somewhat on pathology and toxicology. We stay very much uninvolved in open cases and step in when it is time to review how similar deaths can be prevented in the future."
More curious is that Brodie was reportedly in good health and was not the victim of an obvious external circumstance like a disease, car crash, drowning, or some such incident.
What is known is the boy was playing and there may have been some contact with another student and a fall, but no outward indication of why death should have occurred has been established.
A Prince George coroner and RCMP medical field personnel will determine the cause of death as accurately as possible.
"We look at the circumstances of the child's life as well as the death to see if there was an opportunity for an intervention to result in a different outcome," said Kilpatrick.
"This case is very rare. What the coroner will be doing is obtaining as much information as possible from a variety of different sources. We have no way of knowing what we will have to work with until the coroner concludes that investigation and we have a chance, then, to become involved."
Playground deaths are extremely rare. There are about 350 child deaths a year in B.C., but this, according to coroners' data, is not common. Since 2006, these are the only cases the CDRU has closed (others may be still under investigation):
2006 - one death of natural causes as a 15-year-old was playing rugby after school.
2007 - one accidental death of an 11-year-old who fell while running down a hill at school.
2008 - one death of natural causes as an eight-year-old was playing on school grounds.
The CDRU is tasked with analyzing each coroner's report and looking for ways to prevent similar deaths from happening in the future.
Each year, about 150 deaths are categorized as "natural expected deaths" like those children who pass away from some predetermined medical condition. About 200 others die from a "sudden unexpected death" covering everything from motor vehicle incidents to drowning to homicide.
