Elliot, an alcoholic, asked his parole officer for help. She sent him back to prison

“Elliot Hudson found the box on his first afternoon home from prison. He’d gone up to his old bedroom in his parents’ Ottawa house to unpack some of the clothes his father tidied away while Elliot had been incarcerated. He pulled out the old crock-pot box with ‘recovery stuff’ Sharpied on the side. Inside there were maybe six or seven leather-bound journals, dating back to 2012. Elliot, a contemplative 37-year-old man with an occasionally destructive tendency to get trapped in his own mind, couldn’t resist flipping through. It was disheartening. The dates scrawled in the corners changed but the story didn’t.”

 

Jane Gerster – Global News – February 2020

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Brian Sinclair

“On Sept. 19, 2008, Brian Sinclair went to a community health centre in Winnipeg. He was in pain and needed help with his catheter bag. A doctor examined him and decided he needed to visit the Health Sciences Centre emergency department. Sinclair, a 45-year-old double amputee, was in the early stages of a bladder infection that might lead to sepsis if untreated, the doctor said, and the centre did not have the capabilities to care for him. She wrote a letter for the emergency room explaining the situation, folded it into an envelope, and handed it to Sinclair, who tucked it into his pocket.”

 

Jane Gerster – Global News – September 2018