VANCOUVER, B.C. – A witness who watched Robert Dziekanski stunned by an RCMP Taser at Vancouver’s airport says the Polish man’s pulse was checked at least once after he collapsed on the floor and before firefighters arrived.
Alison Kula, who works for Horizon Air, told a public inquiry into Dziekanski’s October 2007 death that she watched as Dziekanski turned blue on the floor of the international arrivals lounge.
She says someone – she can’t remember whether it was an officer – walked over to Dziekanski and checked his pulse once.
Shortly after the incident she told police investigators that there was also an officer kneeling beside Dziekanski and she assumed he, too, was checking his pulse.
But now Kula says that officer was kneeling by Dziekanski’s legs, and he would have had to move to check the man’s pulse, which he did not.
The officers, who will testify later on, have been criticized by firefighters who complained that when they arrived, no one was monitoring Dziekanski.
