Emergency knives blunted from cutting ligatures from teen’s neck, inquest told

TORONTO – A teenaged inmate tried to strangle herself so many times that knives used to cut off the ligatures went blunt.

The Toronto inquest into Ashley Smith’s death today saw video of one occasion in which she tried to strangle herself.

Guards, who went in to her cell to save her life, had trouble cutting off the ligature because of the dull “9-1-1” knife.

Smith, 19, was purple but survived otherwise unscathed.

Video also showed a guard negotiating with her to give up glass from a smashed TV she was using to cut herself.

Smith would choke herself to death in October 2007 at the Grand Valley Institution in Kitchener, Ont., about a month after that particular morning.

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