INMATE'S DEATH AN ACCIDENT, SAYS JURY

MIDLAND - Joseph Balog never knew the cocaine he was snorting was silently
destroying his heart, keeping him teetering on the brink of death.

That is the tragedy a coroner's jury tried to address yesterday when it
recommended the provincial government create programs for school children
to teach them the deadly drug can cause a user to suddenly drop dead of
heart failure.

The recommendation follows a three-day inquest exploring the death of
Balog, a 20-year-old inmate at the Central North Correctional Centre in
Penetanguishene, referred to as the superjail.

The jury found that Balog died accidentally from cardiac arrest due to
toxic levels of cocaine in his system Sept. 29, 2003.

Experts testified Balog's heart, liver and spleen were so swollen and
filled with scar tissue from constant cocaine abuse that he was bound to
die, although he was unaware of his condition.

"His cocaine abuse had so beat up his heart that his death was going to
happen no matter what," said Crown attorney Davie Russell, counsel for the
coroner.

During the inquest, Russell traced Balog's last two days before the man
collapsed in convulsions in his cell at the superjail.

"His death was the result of a bad decision to choose cocaine to deal with
difficulties in his life in what he probably perceived as a pretty negative
world. For him, cocaine was the easy way. But, once he was addicted, it
became his only way."

In a tearful plea to the jury, Balog's mother asked them to recommend
programs to kids while they are young, before it's too late.

"Tough love sometimes doesn't work," said Kinga Balog.

Earlier this week, the jury heard of the mother's frantic attempts to save
her son from his addiction to cocaine and codeine-based prescription drugs.

She begged him to go into treatment. She went to the police to ask what
could be done.

And, finally, the day before he died, in one last desperate attempt at
tough love, she moved out of her Barrie house and told her son he could not
move with her unless he first signed himself into a detox centre.

In a frenzied state, her son called her from the emptied house and told her
he shot himself.

She called 911.

Barrie police surrounded the house and eventually talked Balog into
surrendering.

It turned out his suicide threat was just a ploy to get his mother's
attention, but police did find two firearms, ammunition, cocaine and
hundreds of pills of every colour in his room.

His mother described the surge of relief she felt when she learned police
would take him to Royal Victoria Hospital after arresting him under the
Mental Health Act.

"I thought he was finally going to get the help that he needed," she said.

But, after a 15-minute assessment by a doctor at the hospital, he was
released to police, who took him back into custody and charged him with
drug and weapons offences.

Balog spent his last night on a concrete slab at the Barrie police station.
The next day, after he was transported to the superjail, he collapsed in
convulsions and was pronounced dead of cardiac arrest at Huronia District
Hospital in Midland.

No one knows for sure when he took his last hit of cocaine or codeine, but
it could have been before he was arrested, the inquest heard.

Inmates who were chained to Balog during the trip to the superjail said he
was sweating and "coming down" off prescription drugs and he wanted more.

In his report on the cause of death, pathologist Russell Price noted
Balog's heart was enlarged. He said Balog would not have known about his
condition.

"If young people were more aware of the damage that cocaine causes, do you
think they would use it a lot less?" one juror asked the doctor.

"I would hope that would be the case," he answered. "Cocaine's capacity to
cause death is relatively misunderstood, even by medical doctors - let
alone young people."

"Education is the key."