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<\/p>\nThe mother of 22-year-old Ezra Cool says her son \u201cneeded help and he didn\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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On Feb. 6, Cool checked himself into the hospital in Vernon<\/a>, B.C., and was involuntarily admitted under B.C.\u2019s Mental Health Act. His mother, Christal Cool, says he was experiencing psychosis with no prior history.<\/p>\n \u201cHe thought he was being drugged. He thought his family was being held hostage at knife point. There\u2019s no prior history. This was just out of the blue,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Six days later, at around 5:30 a.m., Ezra escaped the hospital wearing only socks and hospital clothing while a nurse was on break. About an hour later, his mother was notified. Moments after that, she learned there was a police presence near the hospital.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n Get the day’s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n \u201cI knew it was him. So I drove down here and came to the scene and saw that it was,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n Ezra was struck and killed in a hit-and-run involving a semi on Highway 6.<\/p>\n Vernon RCMP say it\u2019s still under investigation.<\/p>\n Cool says there were no beds available in the psychiatric ward and that her son spent six days in a hallway in the emergency department, with only a brief period in a secure area.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t think that he was safe in that hallway, but I also didn\u2019t see him actually being able to get out because he\u2019d have to walk past security,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\t95-year-old Canadian skier still on the slopes after eight decades\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t \n\t\t\t\t\tLiberals survive confidence vote as House passes budget implementation bill\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n \n\t\t\tMore on Canada She believes the emergency department did not provide the 24\/7 supervision required under the Mental Health Act for someone who was involuntarily admitted.<\/p>\n \u201cEven the nurses said he shouldn\u2019t be in the emergency, he should be in the psych unit. He shouldn\u2019t be here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n B.C.\u2019s Opposition critic for mental health and addictions, Claire Ratt\u00e9e, is questioning whether staffing shortages played a role in the lack of psychiatric space.<\/p>\n \u201cWe do know about the mass resignations of psychiatrists in Vernon last year that likely played a significant role in how the system broke down, and clearly he was not being properly monitored,\u201d Ratt\u00e9e said.<\/p>\n In a statement to Global News, Interior Health confirmed it is undertaking a review of Ezra Cool\u2019s case.<\/p>\n Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cI would like some closure there,\u201d Cool said. \u201cI want to know how things are going to change, how they\u2019re going to change things to make sure this doesn\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\t© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mother of 22-year-old Ezra Cool says her son \u201cneeded help and he didn\u2019t get it.\u201d On Feb.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":619950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,265404,50,120016,265405],"class_list":["post-619949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-canada","tag-interior-heath","tag-news","tag-vernon","tag-vernon-jubilee-hospital"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116142751668196716","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/619950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Get](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/national.jpg\")
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