The Saskatchewan RCMP have launched an investigation into how a 911 call was handled after a woman died and three others were stranded in a stuck car in a remote area of the province.
"I have asked the Minister of Corrections, Public Safety and Policing to appoint an independent agency to review the manner in which the 911 call was handled by the RCMP," Chief Supt. Randy Beck told a news conference on Friday.
"The RCMP will fully co-operate with any independent review to ensure this type of incident does not occur again."
Records indicate that a person from the car called 911 on April 8, but no officers were dispatched to the scene.
Two women and two children had been driving to Loon Lake from Prince Albert when their car got stuck in mud and water along Highway 952 near Big River.
One of the women, Kerri Canepotatoe, walked away from the car and hiked 60 kilometres to find help. She died, apparently from exposure, and her body was found several days later on the side of a secondary highway.
Once the woman was identified, police learned she had been travelling with another woman, Melissa Rabbitskin, and her two young children, weren't found for seven days.
They began a search for the three missing people. They were found alive in the car about 9:30 Thursday night and were taken to hospital.
Police say the employee who took the call was a civilian member of the force and is still on active duty.
"Based on the information he was given by the caller, he did not dispatch RCMP members to the scene," Beck said. "In this instance, there appears to be a departure from regular procedures in handling of a call for assistance."
The Saskatchewan government appointed a neutral observer to oversee the RCMP review of how the dispatcher handled the call.
Judy Orthner, a spokeswoman with the Ministry of Corrections, Public Safety and Policing, underlined that that officials were not worried about the integrity of the emergency-call system generally.
"There is no concern with the 911 system related to this emergency situation... and there certainly aren't concerns with the 911 system overall," she said Saturday.
The province intends to deliver answers within weeks, Orthner said.
Cellphone service is "really spotty" in the area where the car's occupants became stranded, Chief Bruce Morin of the Big River First Nation said, and the ordeal could have been avoided had coverage been better.
Morin noted that Canepotatoe's ill-fated walk to find help led officers to the survivors.
"If she'd have stayed over there, nobody would probably have known that they were there. But by her walking out like that and going through that ordeal that she did go through, she saved three people."
With reports from CTV Regina and The Canadian Press
