Mother accused in son’s death in Alberta wishes she had taken him to a doctor

LETHBRIDGE, Alta. – A woman accused in her toddler’s death from bacterial meningitis says she wishes she had taken him to a doctor.

Collet Stephan said Friday she could not recall doing tests in March 2012 to determine whether her nearly 19-month-son Ezekiel had meningitis.

Stephan and her husband David are on trial in a southern Alberta court on a charge of failing to provide the necessaries of life for their child.

The couple, formerly of Glenwood, Alta., now live in Nelson, B.C.

Ezekiel was sick for more than two weeks before he died in hospital. Court has heard how his parents gave him natural remedies, including smoothies with hot peppers and horseradish because they thought he had croup and the flu.

The jury has already heard that a friend who was a nurse told the Stephans that their boy might have viral meningitis and advised them to take him to a doctor.

Crown prosecutor Clayton Giles asked why Collet Stephan had performed two tests she found on the Internet to check for signs of meningitis.

“I’m not saying I didn’t do them,” Stephan said. “But I just don’t have a recollection of doing them today. I can’t comment on what I saw then if I can’t remember what I saw today.”

Giles suggested Stephan would have taken a significant amount of time researching meningitis in order to diagnose her son’s issues.

Collet disagreed with the term “diagnosis,” but agreed with the Crown that she was researching in order to identify the illness.

“I was just trying to figure out what virus or what illness he had, not try to, like, diagnose my child and say, ‘This is with certainty what he has,’” she said.

“Taking him to a doctor for a diagnosis would have been a much more sure way,” Giles said. “Would you agree with that?”

“No one would want a different outcome than my husband and I,” Collet said tearfully. “Do I wish I would have took him to a doctor? Absolutely.”

Stephan also testified that the day the boy was rushed to Alberta Children’s Hospital in Calgary she told police that her children never got sick.

But she previously told court that her kids did occasionally get the flu and she’s not sure why she told police otherwise.

Stephan said she and her husband were under a great deal of stress and had had very little sleep when they were first questioned by police.

Court documents already entered in the trial say just days before Ezekiel was rushed to hospital his family was giving him fluids through an eyedropper because he wouldn’t eat or drink.

The jury has also heard that the little boy’s body was so stiff and sore that he couldn’t be placed in a car seat and was placed on a mattress in the back seat of a car to be taken to a naturopath in Lethbridge the day before he stopped breathing and was rushed to hospital.

(Lethbridge Herald, CJOC, The Canadian Press)