A trailer hitch thrown at an Indigenous woman from a moving car ruptured her small intestine and led to worsening health conditions that killed her months later, a doctor told a Thunder Bay, Ont., court on Tuesday.
Dr. Toby Rose testified at the manslaughter trial of Brayden Bushby, saying the hitch incident hastened the woman's death.
Bushby, 21, has pleaded not guilty in the death of 34-year-old Barbara Kentner, who died approximately five months after she was injured in the January 2017 incident.
He has admitted to throwing the hitch and pleaded guilty to aggravated assault, but his lawyer has argued there is no legal link between his actions and Kentner's death.
Rose performed an autopsy on Kentner three days after she died, and concluded the woman's death was caused by abdominal infection and pneumonia - conditions that were a consequence of a rupture of her small intestine.
That rupture happened because of the blunt force injury from the thrown trailer hitch, Rose said.
The doctor's autopsy report also cited end-stage liver disease as a condition that contributed to Kentner's death, but her illness was not "causally related" to the death, Rose said.
It was a "complicated" case, but Rose said she ultimately she concluded that Kentner's death was hastened by her injury sustained on Jan. 29, 2017.
“Although she was a very sick woman and she ultimately would have died of her liver disease, she would not have died at exactly the time that she did die had she not been injured,” Rose told the court.
Rose also suggested there were complications from emergency surgery performed on Kentner the day she was injured that may have contributed to her death.
In a discharge report from March 24, 2017, doctors recommended end-of-life care for Kentner, court heard.
Bushby's judge-alone trial began Monday and will hinge on the question of whether evidence proves that the man's actions contributed to Kentner's death.
Two friends who were with Bushby at the time of the attack said he had been drinking before the incident and laughed immediately after throwing the hitch.
Their testimony from a 2018 preliminary hearing was entered into evidence at the trial late Monday.
Nathan Antoniszyn testified that Bushby had said he wanted to "drive around and yell at hookers" before the Jan. 29, 2017 assault.
Antoniszyn told the court he saw his friend pick up the trailer hitch at one point. He later heard a bang outside the vehicle, which was being driven by another friend.
He testified that he saw Bushby return to his seat, laughing, and said he realized what Bushby had done.
"I asked him what he did and he just smiled about it, I instantly like kind of clicked in what he had done," Antoniszyn said.
"I heard a big bang like smack on the window and I instantly looked behind and seen someone on the ground so ... the trailer hitch came into my mind. I thought he threw it."
Jordan Crupi, who was also in the vehicle at the time, testified that Bushby had been drinking whisky since the previous morning.
Crupi said he had been asleep in the back seat but was woken up by a bang and saw Bushby, who had been partially out of the window, return to the front passenger seat.
Neither of the two witnesses who reported the incident to the police days after it happened saw Bushby throw the trailer hitch, court heard.
Kentner's sister, who was with her at the time, has told the trial she remembers someone hanging out of a vehicle saying "I got one" after the hitch was thrown.
The trial continues Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 3, 2020.
Holly McKenzie-Sutter, The Canadian Press
