The Montreal teenager at the centre of anti-vaccine protests died of an underlying condition in 2021, a coroner has ruled.
The coroner has ruled that natural causes, based on an underlying heart condition, were to blame for the 2021 death of a 15-year-old girl at Louis-Riel school in Rosemont.
Malaka Rizkalla collapsed in class and died Sept. 7, 2021. The next day, rumours were swirling that the COVID-19 vaccine caused her death. Anti-vaccine activists arrived at the school to protest against a vaccination campaign that was about to get underway at the school.
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The girl’s death became a rallying cry for anti-vaccine militants who allege the death was caused by a vaccine against COVID-19. A group came to the school the day after her death and became involved in a shouting match with teachers, claiming that the vaccination campaign was responsible for the girl’s death, and that the school was hiding the truth. The school board confirmed there had been no vaccination campaign on the day the girl died. The campaign started a day later. The girl had been vaccinated twice, with the second dose having been administrated two months before.
In his report, coroner Jean Brochu explained that the girl had a cardiac arrhythmia, which nearly caused her to drown in 2015. At that time, a pacemaker was implanted in her chest.
In the summer of 2017, her heart stopped while she was swimming at a public pool. She was resuscitated with defibrillators and taken to a hospital, where she underwent surgery to remove part of the nerve in the thoracic region.
After consultations with numerous specialists, Rizkallah was diagnosed with Catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia, a rare genetic heart condition that causes irregular heartbeats.
She was given a medication to help control the condition. However, Brochu said one month before her death, she had stopped taking the medication. He didn’t say who made the decision for her to stop taking the medication, nor did Brochu know if the medication could have prevented her death.
Rizkallah had asked to go to the bathroom on Sept. 7 at 2:20 p.m. When she returned, she collapsed at her desk with her head down and her arms crossed. She was making a sound like she was crying and breathing as though she was asleep, her fellow students recounted.
Students then held her to prevent her from falling hard on the floor. Her teacher used the intercom to call for help, and an ambulance was called.
Two school staff members trained in first aid arrived on the scene and performed CPR and used a defibrillator until first responders and ambulance technicians came to the scene at 2:46 p.m.
She arrived at Maisonneuve-Rosemont Hospital at 3:21 p.m. and was declared dead at 4:04 p.m. An autopsy was performed at Ste-Justine hospital; it found no traces of substances that could have triggered the episode. The report found that the pacemaker was properly installed and should have been working properly.
There were no signs of alcohol in her blood, and there were also no signs of the medication that she was prescribed for her condition.
The coroner has ruled that the death was due to natural causes, likely due to her heart condition.
jmagder@postmedia.com
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