While Jeffrey Halstrom was fighting for his life on a St. Michael's Hospital operating table, the surgeon who had been rushing to his rescue was waiting on the side of a road for a Toronto police officer to write him a ticket for speeding.
Halstrom, who is recovering in the hospital's intensive care unit, suffered a massive heart attack around lunchtime Saturday. A short time later, Dr. Michael Kutryk, the hospital's cardiologist on call over the weekend, was stopped by a radar unit while rushing from his Leaside home to help.
But no amount of pleading or explaining would deter the officer from issuing the physician a $300 ticket, said Michael Oscars, Halstrom's longtime partner.
Kutryk did not return numerous phone calls and emails Monday, and police would not release the identity of the officer who wrote the ticket.
Hospital spokeswoman Julie Saccone, however, spoke with the doctor, who said he considered it a private matter between him and the police.
"All he wanted me to pass on was that he regrets that he sped and that he shared that information with the family (which added) to their stress," Saccone said.
The top officer at the force's 53 Division, where the ticket was issued, confirmed the incident had occurred and that Kutryk had complained to him about it and was intent on fighting the fine.
Staff Insp. Larry Sinclair, the division's unit commander, said roadside officers use their own discretion to determine whether an emergency warrants illegal speeds.
But Sinclair defended his officer, saying he might have prevented an accident by stopping the speeding physician.
"It doesn't matter if it's a physician or whoever that is on his way to what he or she considers an emergency," Sinclair said. "If he or she gets in a collision on the way to that emergency, they're no use. They're going to be tied up a lot longer than what it takes to write a ticket."
Const. Wendy Drummond, a police spokeswoman, said Kutryk was driving 35 km/h an hour over the posted limit of 40 km/h in the Bayview and Moore Aves. area.
Drummond said the location was a frequent target for police radar because many neighbours had complained of drivers speeding through the residential area.
"We have community members contact the division in which they reside and put in complaints," Drummond said. "They say, 'You know what, I am a resident of this area and I am fed up. People are continually either speeding or drinking,' that type of thing."
Oscars awoke around 7 a.m. Saturday to find Halstrom, a 47-year-old kindergarten teacher, sitting on the edge of a living room chair complaining of a heavy weight in his chest.
Over the objections of his partner of 17 years, Oscars insisted on driving Halstrom from their Berkeley St. home to St. Mike's, where he was admitted for observation.
By lunchtime, his condition had taken a turn for the worse and it was determined he would need immediate angioplasty surgery to open what turned out to be three clogged arteries.
Kutryk was called in to perform the operation, but was waylaid en route by police.
"The doctor arrived a little later than he wanted to be, very upset, very angry because he had encountered a police officer," Oscars recalled.
"In spite of him (Kutryk) saying he was on his way to an emergency of a 47-year-old man in cardiac arrest, and that every minute counted ... the police officer either chose to disbelieve him or chose to be a moron," he said.
Oscars, who runs a downtown talent agency, said Kutryk was stopped by police for "the better part of 10 minutes" and that the doctor said it could have proven a deadly delay.
"If anything, that officer should have escorted him to the hospital," he said.
"Everybody here told me that had the operation not happened in time, my partner would have been dead. It was an open-and-shut case."
A senior Toronto officer, however, said police do not escort civilians at high speed because they face liability issues if there is an accident.
Damage to Halstrom's heart was so severe that he was given a post-operative 50 per cent chance of survival, Oscars said.
"I cautiously and optimistically say he's much better, luckily because he does have youth on his side," Oscars said. "But he's critically ill, there's no two ways about it."
Kutryk is one of the city's top cardiologists and inventor of a revolutionary heart stent that helps blocked arteries heal after insertion.
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