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 at the side of a road for a police officer to write him a ticket for speeding.
Halstrom, who is recovering in hospital, 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.
But no amount of pleading 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 yesterday, and the police would not release the identity of the officer who wrote the ticket.
The top officer at the force’s 53 Division, where the ticket was issued, confirmed the incident had occurred and 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 warranted illegal speeds.
But Sinclair defended his officer, saying he may well 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 spokesperson, said Kutryk was driving 35 kilometres per hour over the posted limit of 40 km/h in the Bayview and Moore avenues area.
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