Toronto woman who fell from balcony after police arrived had seizures, inquest hears

A Toronto woman who fell from a highrise balcony while police were in her home more than six years ago had a long history of seizures due to epilepsy, often followed by confusion and aggressive behaviour, a coroner’s inquest into her death heard Tuesday.

Regis Korchinski-Paquet had experienced two seizures the morning of May 27, 2020, hours before police were called in the late afternoon over a “rapidly developing and violent family disturbance that involved knives,” coroner’s counsel said.

Korchinski-Paquet herself had made three of the five calls to police, and a neurologist who heard the recordings told the inquest she sounded distressed and repetitive, as though she couldn’t remember her previous calls.

Less than half an hour later, Korchinski-Paquet, a woman of Ukrainian, Black and Indigenous ancestry, was dead, having fallen from the 24th-floor. She was 29.

“Today, we begin this inquest hoping to get answers, understand what happened and help ensure that people experiencing a crisis receive a safe and compassionate response from first responders,” her family said in a statement read to jurors.

“Regis brought people together across our city. Let’s take this opportunity to work towards meaningful change for the years to come.”

Police and paramedics were called on multiple occasions in the years preceding Korchinski-Paquet’s death, some of them related to her seizures and others including mentions of her seizures, according to an agreed narrative read at the inquest.

Medical records showed her seizures were often followed by symptoms such as “confusion, irritability, physically and verbally abusive behaviour and episodic amnesia,” the inquest heard.

Dr. Julien Hébert, a neurologist specializing in epilepsy who reviewed Korchinski-Paquet’s records for the inquest, testified that on several of those occasions, she showed patterns of behaviour in keeping with postictal delirium or psychosis, both mental states that can occur after seizures.

Postictal psychosis is marked by a disconnect from reality, while postictal delirium — the more common of the two — involves an altered state of awareness and confusion, though it can also include a disconnect from reality, he said.

In one incident in October 2017, an ambulance was called for Korchinski-Paquet after she appeared confused on a public transit bus, he said. She ended up walking out of the ambulance and into oncoming traffic, “suggesting that she had impairment in her appreciation of her environment and her awareness as well as her judgment,” the neurologist said.

Another incident in September 2019 “had several echoes of the situation that occurred on the day that Regis passed away,” Hébert said, including reports that she was being aggressive with her family and that a knife was involved. She had missed her anti-seizure medication that day, and even missing one dose can be enough to trigger a seizure, he said.

Hébert suggested several possible recommendations jurors could make, including increasing awareness of epilepsy and its potential effects.

“The knowledge that seizures and epilepsy can lead to a state of postictal delirium or postictal psychosis has not permeated all sort of strata in the society,” he said.

“So I think … a first step would be to recognize that patients with epilepsy can have a phase after their seizure during which they will exhibit confusion, disorientation, behavioural changes and cognitive changes.”

The inquest’s scope includes how police and first responders are informed about epilepsy and how to ensure safety when a person’s behaviour may be influenced by postictal delirium, inquest counsel Roger Shallow said.

The inquest will not look into general mental health challenges or psychiatric care, however, or the investigations by various police watchdogs into the case, he said.

Korchinski-Paquet’s death was “sudden and profoundly tragic” and no matter what the jury concludes, her family has been left to grapple with a loss no one should experience, Shallow said.

“Regis Paquet was not an incident. She was not a file number. She was not simply the subject of an (Special Investigations Unit) investigation or coroner’s inquest,” he said in his opening remarks.

“She was a daughter, a sister, an auntie, a member of a family, and a young woman whose life ended in circumstances that have had a profound impact on many people.”

Korchinski-Paquet’s death came on the heels of the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man from Minneapolis, spurring further protests amid growing calls to defund the police.

It also cast a spotlight on how police interact with people experiencing mental health crises.

Ontario’s police watchdog investigated the case and eventually cleared Toronto police of wrongdoing in Korchinski-Paquet’s death. The Special Investigations Unit found it happened as she was trying to move from her apartment balcony to an adjacent one.

The inquest was announced earlier this year and is slated to last 14 days, with 13 witnesses expected to take the stand. Korchinski-Paquet’s mother, father and brother have been named as potential witnesses, as have five of the six police officers who attended the scene.

The inquest jury does not assign criminal responsibility but may make recommendations aimed at preventing similar deaths in the future. The chief coroner’s office does not have the authority to impose the recommendations, however.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 13, 2026.