BRAMPTON TEEN DIES AT TORONTO RAVE

Hours before he collapsed inside a downtown Toronto rave, a 16-year-old
Brampton teen had gone looking within the club to buy ecstasy, says his
cousin who was with him that night.

Daniel Engson had been dancing hard to the jungle beat at the Digital Club
on Mercer St. Saturday night before he collapsed at about 3 a.m., four
hours after he arrived at the club with his 15 friends to celebrate his
cousin, Gerard Engson's, 18th birthday.

Daniel, 16, died after taking what he believed was ecstasy at a weekend
rave in Toronto held at the unlicenced Digital Club on Mercer St., where no
sale of alcohol is permitted.

"He bought them (the pills) within the club. At about midnight he wanted to
buy some ecstasy. He went off by himself to buy it. He was going around
asking for it (the drug)," said his cousin and his best friend Gerard, who
said he went sober to the party.

Daniel fell into unconsciousness three hours after taking two pills about
midnight, his cousin said. He was taken to St. Michael's Hospital about
3:30 a.m. and died about nine hours later.

Before he collapsed Daniel sat down "he asked for water a lot. He started
shaking a bit. A bit later he started convulsing. He couldn't hold himself
down. The girls around him were trying to keep him down," said Gerard, who
hurried off to get his cousin more water.

But when Gerard returned with the water, Daniel had been taken outside by
his friends. Paramedics who were on site were around Daniel and he was
rushed to hospital shortly after, Gerard recalled.

But investigators are waiting for toxicological and histological testing to
determine the cause of death after an autopsy yesterday yielded
inconclusive results, said regional coroner Dr. William Lucas. "We'll be
looking for alcohol, drugs and quantities," Lucas said.

"We're still at the preliminary stages of the investigation. Our primary
suspicion is that this is a drug-related death," Lucas said.

"Someone with a sensitivity to the drug might only need to ingest one
pill," Lucas added.

"I'll never touch that stuff. It was my first rave. I'll never go again,"
said Gerard, an OAC student at St. Thomas Aquinas in Brampton.

Making funeral arrangements

Instead of celebrating his birthday, which was Monday, Gerard and his
family met with Daniel's father, who works at a wallpaper company and his
mother, a data base operator, last night to make funeral arrangements for
Saturday.

Now Daniel's mother wants to warn other kids about the drug's lethal dangers.

"I hope they will stop doing that drug (ecstasy) and learn a lesson from
that," said a sorrowful Annie Engson yesterday.

"Now I would never let my other children go to a rave," she said. The
couple has two other children, Ian, 12, and Jessica, 8.

Daniel was due to start summer school next week. A Grade 11 student at
Cardinal Leger High School, Daniel was going to be making up credits in
English and math, before he entered Grade 12 in the fall, said his mother.

Investigators will also be looking at whether the management of the club
advised the police about this event and whether they had the appropriate
security measures, said Sgt. Jim Muscat at police headquarters yesterday.
"At this point at time there's no indication of any charges.

"There's going to be an inherent danger of consuming anything you purchase
off the street unless it's bottled water or pop," Muscat warned rave goers.
"And hang on to that drink if you want to make sure no one slips anything
into it," he added. "it's difficult to tell what effects these drugs will
have on the heart and the brain."

Lucas feels it would "make sense" to look at making raves safe rather than
driving them underground "where you have absolutely no control over them."

Toxicology tests will reveal what was in the pills that Daniel ingested.

Histilogical tissue testing will also reveal any serious infections or
diseases the teen might have suffered.

Daniel told his mother he'd be staying at his cousin Gerard's house after
leaving the rave. But when the teens didn't show up, Gerard's mother,
Eloisa Engson, phoned her son on his cell phone about 1 a.m. to ask why
they weren't home yet.

She phoned again at about 3 a.m. very worried, her son said. "We're in
trouble. We're in big trouble. Daniel is in the hospital," he told his mother.