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Elderly Woman Succumbs to Cold During Power Outage
29 Sep
Summary
- An 87-year-old woman died of hypothermia during a power outage.
- She was without power for nearly 36 hours in freezing temperatures.
- A class-action lawsuit was filed against Hydro-Québec for slow power restoration.
A devastating power outage in Montreal during January led to the tragic death of an 87-year-old woman, Sheila Padmore, from hypothermia. She endured nearly 36 hours without heat in her apartment while temperatures outside ranged from -10 C to -20 C.
Montreal police discovered Padmore disoriented and extremely cold during a wellness check on January 25th. Paramedics noted her laboured breathing and weak pulse. En route to the hospital, she lost consciousness and suffered cardiorespiratory arrest, arriving with a body temperature of 24.5 C. Despite resuscitation efforts, she was pronounced dead early on January 26th.
The outage, which began around January 24th due to equipment failure at a Hydro-Québec substation, impacted over 20,000 customers for up to three days. In response, a class-action lawsuit was filed against Hydro-Québec, alleging undue delays in restoring power during the extreme cold.
Hydro-Québec stated that all measures were taken to restore service quickly and that a project for a new substation in the affected area has been underway since 2018. Investigations into another death during the outage are ongoing.
