Montreal man died of aneurysm after waiting 6 hours in ER

Adam Burgoyne, 39, died of an aneurysm after a long wait in a Montreal emergency room. (Dignity Memorial)

A Montreal man died of an aneurysm after spending six hours in an emergency room before giving up and going home.

Adam Burgoyne, 39, posted on his X account on Dec. 5 that he had a “health scare” but “thankfully it wasn’t a heart attack” after getting an electrocardiogram (ECG) done. He said he had chest pain on his left side, nausea and clammy skin and a hard time breathing.

He added that once health-care workers made sure he “wasn’t dying,” he was “thrown out into the waiting room” where he waited six hours before going home without further medical assistance. It’s unclear which hospital Burgoyne went to.

His obituary said he died the next day.

Originally from Halifax, Burgoyne is remembered by his loved ones as someone who “loved to laugh and always made us giggle with throwback quotes sourced from an eclectic collection of 90’s cartoons, Monty Python movies, MadTV sketches, childhood memories, and downright ridiculous memes,” the obituary said. He had recently gotten engaged.

Joshua Slocum, a close friend of Burgoyne, said the death came as a total shock. Burgoyne was young, healthy and fit and had been sober for years following a struggle with addiction.

“You don't expect a 39 year old to keel over dead like that, right?” he said in an interview.

“He really, really did well for himself in life. You know, he cleaned himself up from a drug addiction and pulled himself out of the gutter and became a competent and respected professional. So it's quite difficult.”

Slocum had a heart attack at 36 years old and said it’s crucial that people listen to their bodies when they feel something is wrong. He said when he had his attack, he felt little pain and was able to walk and talk but knew he needed to call an ambulance.

“If you feel that something is seriously wrong with you that is giving you a sensation you've never experienced before, that is almost always a truthful sign that something is desperately wrong,” said Slocum.

“People die every single day because they say, ‘Oh, I'm taking this too seriously.’”

He stressed that people need to advocate for themselves, even in overflowing ERs where staff may be stretched thin.

“The default should not be the assumption that someone is having a panic attack, which they told Adam,” he said. “I don't think they took it seriously enough. And I've heard enough about this, both in Canadian and in American health care, that I think this is a systemic problem.”

Shelley Amyotte, Burgoyne’s sister, said the family is grieving and wishes for privacy.

“We hope that in the near future, the standard protocols in emergency room intake and triage are expanded so that testing and imaging to detect aneurysms will be handled with the same urgency as those for heart attacks,” she told CTV News in a message.

Overloaded health-care system

Paul Brunet, Chair of the Council for the Protection of Patients, said he “cannot believe this gentleman wouldn’t have been seen earlier and taken care of to prevent him from dying.”

He pointed to a 2005 Supreme Court decision that said long wait times are part of public health-care management. Brunet added that most ER cases can be seen elsewhere, like through the GAP program, by calling 811 or other forms of telemedicine.

“They should take the word emergency off these wards because, unfortunately unless you’re dying right now, I’m not sure you’re going to be seen,” he said.

Dr. Greg Clark, who sits on the board of Association des médecins d'urgence du Québec, said the problem isn’t with the triage system as much as it is with the health-care network as a whole.

People who go to the ER in critical condition have to be seen within 15 minutes, and delays start with second-priority cases, he said. Clark added that aneurysms can be hard to predict or detect in time.

He said hospitals are overloaded, there aren’t enough beds in other wings, in specialized care centres or at-home care workers, and patients who should be getting care elsewhere are clogging up the ER.

“This causes delays in getting evaluated and to go to another floor to get care. It’s a big problem,” said Clark.

Both Clark and Brunet hope the switch to Santé Québec will make the system more efficient and accountable.

With files from Marisela Amador and Denise Roberts