This article mentions blood and contains explicit mention and discussion of self-harm and suicide.
Katherine and Tristan’s names have been changed to protect their identities.
The night of December 4, 2022, Katherine, a fourth-year student, experienced a mental health crisis at her UBC dorm room.
Less than one month earlier, another student, Kyle Sohn, had died following an emergency in UBC residence.
Katherine’s own crisis was serious, too. That night, she had harmed herself and was bleeding. “By 11 [p.m.] things escalated really quickly,” she said.
She had a history of self-harm, and a similar situation occurred less than two weeks ago. At the time, she was capable of bringing herself to the hospital. This time, it was much more severe.
Lying on the floor of her dorm room, Katherine called her friend, Tristan, for help. He immediately biked across campus to her dorm, but said staff prevented him from entering the doors to the residential part of Katherine’s building and would not dial 911.
Both Katherine and Tristan are now calling for changes to UBC’s residence safety policies to make it easier for students to get help during emergencies. In particular, they want it to be easier for non-emergency responders to enter residents’ rooms during similar situations.
And with death by suicide being the second leading cause of death among young people in Canada, Katherine says UBC needs to take action.
Under current UBC Housing policies, only “authorized personnel of the University” may enter a resident's room in the case of a health emergency. The University of Victoria has a similar policy under its housing policies.
Their call comes just a few weeks after Minister of Public Safety Mike Farnworth said he expected UBC to review its safety policies following the death of Sohn in November 2022.
UBC told The Ubyssey in March it was not commenting on this review.
“UBC residence markets themselves based on being a great place for students to live with tons of resources and support systems. It’s just the opposite of that,” Katherine said. “They’re not supportive at all.”
‘A really close call’
Tristan told The Ubyssey in an interview he alerted the front desk staff that Katherine needed medical attention and that he needed someone to help him dial 911 while he went upstairs.
But Tristan said the staff would not let him through the doors into the residential area of the building of her upper-year residence building and said they could not do anything further to help.
“They were like, ‘If there’s something wrong, call 911,’” Tristan recalled.
Tristan was still on the phone with Katherine and could not hang up to dial 911.
Instead, he used the front desk phone to dial 911, but front desk staff said they would not stay on the phone with emergency services while he went to check on Katherine.
Panicking, Tristan decided to hang up on 911 from the front desk phone. By chance, another student then came over to let him into the building, to which the front desk staff did not object.
When he finally entered Katherine’s dorm room — he said it took her a while to answer the door — he dialed 911 again. Emergency responders arrived within 10 minutes and she was taken to Vancouver General Hospital, according to Tristan.
Tristan recalled the police officer telling him, “This was a really close call.”
Had it been later in the night with no student present to scan Tristan into the building, Katherine said the story could have become another campus tragedy.
“I could have died,” she said.
A call for change
Last month, Katherine attended one of VP Students Ainsley Carry’s listening sessions, where she voiced her concerns about how residence staff and students interact.
She told Carry about her medical incident and that she had been rapidly losing blood.
Specifically, she described to Carry how the front desk staff was unable to let Tristan through the lobby doors or stay on the line with 911 on his behalf while he attended to her crisis. She shared how responders told them the delays could have made the difference between life and death.
Katherine said Carry explained to her that the front desk could not call or stay on the line with 911 because they didn’t have all the information.
She and Tristan disagree and believe the front desk had a full understanding of the nature of the situation.
Matthew Ramsey, director of university affairs at UBC Media Relations, said in a statement that privacy law prevents the university from commenting on specific situations, but that all events involving distressed individuals require “individualized responses.”
If a student feels they are in medical distress or an emergency situation, he wrote, “the first action they should take is to call 911.”
“UBC’s priority in all incidents involving students is student health, safety and wellbeing,” Ramsey said.
He also cautioned the efficacy of comparing differing personal experiences with each other when assessing appropriate responses.
He said UBC is still not commenting on whether the university will be updating its safety policies.
Tristan said the front desk staff offered support when the police department arrived, but he felt that it was “too late” at that point.
“It’s important to have rules and procedures, but it seems like there was no willingness to diverge from these, even when it was an emergency situation,” he said.
Katherine also said she understood the need for safety policies regarding privacy and consent.
But, to her, it is “common sense” that the rules should be reviewed.
Katherine said the biggest delay should have been Tristan biking to her dorm, not being barred from entering in the first place.
“Students need to be treated like humans,” she said.
For those in need of mental health support, consider accessing these on- and off-campus resources:
BC Crisis Support Line: https://crisiscentre.bc.ca/ | 1.800.784.2433
Free and 24/7 access to counselors: https://here2talk.ca/home | 1.877.857.3397
UBC Counselling: https://students.ubc.ca/health/counselling-services | 604.822.3811
AMS Peer Support: https://www.ams.ubc.ca/student-services/peer-support/
Other UBC resources: https://students.ubc.ca/health