Paramedics guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life in death of Hamilton teen Yosif Al-Hasnawi
Published June 8, 2021 at 5:39 pm
The two Hamilton paramedics who treated dying teenager Yosif Al-Hasnawi in 2017 have been found guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life.
The decision by an Ontario Superior Court judge in the “Good Samaritan” trail was delivered Tuesday (June 8) after 32 days of testimony from witnesses, experts, and Al-Hasnawi’s family and friends.
“To say this is a tragic case would be a gross understatement,” said Justice Harrison Arrell.
Al-Hasnawi, a 19-year-old Brock University student, died in hospital after he was shot in the abdomen on Dec. 2, 2017, during an altercation near Main St East and Sanford Ave.
Al-Hasnawi had just left an Islamic centre after prayers and intervened when he saw an older man being accosted by two people, according to police.
In the ensuing confrontation, he was shot.
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The lawyers for Steven Snively, 55, and Christopher Marchant, 32, argued the paramedics honestly believed that Al-Hasnawi was only suffering from a pellet gun wound and psychiatric trauma and did not need to be rushed to a trauma centre.
The justice said the paramedics showed a “marked departure” from care standards in their response and that the pair “acted jointly” in failing to conclude that Al-Hasnawi suffered a gun shot wound to the abdomen.
In 2019, Dale King was found not guilty of second-degree murder in Al-Haswani’s death by reason of self-defence. That decision is still under appeal.
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