David and Collet Stephan. (Lethbridge News Now)

By David Opinko

Lawyer picks apart meningitis being the “most likely” cause of Ezekiel Stephan’s death

Jul 12, 2019 | 11:56 AM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The attorney for Collet Stephan cross examined Dr. Bamidele Adeagbo, the coroner who was leading the investigation into the death of 19-month-old Ezekiel.

Although he now works out of Indiana, Dr. Adeagbo was previously based out of Calgary and worked with his team for this case in the Alberta Children’s Hospital in March of 2012.

Jason Demers started out Friday’s court proceedings by affirming that two pages of notes out of a 204-page booklet were hand written by Dr. Adeagbo himself.

In it, the doctor wrote that bacterial meningitis was the most likely cause of death. When looking into the sequence of events leading up to the person’s passing, Dr. Adeagbo says “most likely” is the official term they would use since it is not possible in the medical field to be 100% certain that one thing and only that one thing definitely caused the death.

Demers, however, interpreted that to mean that the diagnosis of bacterial meningitis might have been wrong.

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He also questioned why there was not an additional test done on the collection of pus, known as empyema, that had formed in Ezekiel’s body when tests were done on the cerebrospinal fluid that was found in the patient’s brain.

Dr. Adeagbo replied that these tests are very expensive to perform and believes that they had already done their due diligence by that point.

Part of his job as a coroner is to warn the public of any infectious diseases that might come out. He says a collection of pus in an infant did not qualify as that.

Originally, Dr. Adeagbo’s involvement in the court proceedings was supposed to conclude by the end of Friday, but during a break in the session this morning, Demers said there was still a lot he wanted to question the witness on and said it would likely carry on later this month.