An 87-year-old Montreal woman died of profound hypothermia after spending nearly 36 hours without power during a major January outage, according to a newly released Quebec coroner’s report.
Sheila Padmore was found on the floor of her Notre-Dame-de-Grâce apartment on Jan. 25 during a police wellness check. She was taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital and died early the following morning.
Coroner Marie-Claude Boutin concluded Padmore died from prolonged exposure to cold in her home after the power outage and classified the death as accidental.
The outage began Jan. 24 after an equipment failure at Hydro-Québec’s Hampstead substation and affected about 15,000 customers. Some outages lasted more than 48 hours.
Paramedics found Padmore confused, with extremely cold hands and laboured breathing. At hospital, her core temperature was recorded at 24.5 C, which the coroner described as profound hypothermia.
The coroner said Padmore’s age and very thin build made her more vulnerable to the cold. She also said remaining on the floor likely increased her heat loss.
The report does not make a finding of negligence or legal fault against Hydro-Québec. It notes the utility subsequently replaced a transformer, increased capacity on two distribution lines and accelerated work on a new Côte-Saint-Luc substation.
Padmore’s death was one of two deaths investigated following the outage.
Another woman, 66-year-old Miriam Foox, was also found dead during that weekend outage. The coroner has now determined her death was unrelated to the blackout. The report says Foox likely died on Jan. 23 — the day before the power went out — from an acute deterioration of chronic respiratory failure. She had been in severe respiratory distress that day and had refused a recommended trip to hospital.
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