David Patterson (Nov. 2, 1950 -- Jan. 10, 2003) was the son of Dad's cousin Mary, whose mother, Kate Walpole, was Annie (Reid) Fraser's closest sister.
David was also the unsung hero of Walkerton, as explained in a tribute by Allison Lawlor, in The Globe and Mail, February 7, 2003. That obituary is copied below:
David Patterson 1950-2003
The unsung hero of Walkerton
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| David Patterson at the O'Connor hearing: His meticulous record-keeping provided a valuable source of information for the inquiry into the tainted-water scandal. [Photo by Tibor Kelley, The Globe and Mail] |
He died of rare complications related to rheumatoid arthritis, said his wife, Sharon Patterson.
"He was extremely dedicated. I feel he gave his life to public health for 33 years," said Jim Paton, the Grey Bruce Health Unit's director of health protection and Mr. Patterson's long-time colleague and friend. Mr. Patterson worked at the health unit for 30 years. He retired just a few months after the E. coli tragedy hit the Western Ontario town.
"He has been described as the unsung hero of Walkerton," Mr. Paton said.
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| Walkerton is in the heart of "Reid" country. |
Although he initially suspected a problem with bad food, the common source for E. coli infections, Mr. Patterson also called the manager of the municipal water supply and asked if there were any problems with the water. The manager, Stan Koebel, repeatedly assured him that the town's drinking water was fine.
As the illness spread through the community, Mr. Patterson became convinced that the municipal water supply was the only plausible source of the infection.
He quickly wrote out a boil-water advisory for the town on the afternoon of May 21, 2000, the Sunday of the Victoria Day weekend. The advisory, urging residents to boil their tap water, was not lifted until Dec. 5, 2000.
Later on May 21, Mr. Patterson and his wife drove 21 samples of Walkerton water to a laboratory in London, Ont., arriving after midnight. On their trip home, in the dead of night, they almost hit a deer.
Tests confirmed that the municipal water system was contaminated with E. coli and fecal coliform bacteria.
"It was just astounding what that man did," said Dr. Murray McQuigge, the former medical officer of health at the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Health Unit, who left the health unit in March, 2002. (The health unit changed its name in 2001.)
In addition to the seven people who died from the E. coli infection, 2,500 people in Walkerton became ill, some seriously.
"I believe he did the very best he could have under the circumstances," Bruce Davidson of the group Concerned Walkerton Citizens said.
Mr. Patterson confronted Mr. Koebel to find out what had gone wrong. The details of how Walkerton's water became contaminated with E. coli were revealed at a public inquiry that opened in the town in October, 2000, five months after the contamination came to light.
"When Mr. Koebel learned from test results for the samples collected on May 15 that there was a high level of contamination in the system, he did not disclose the results to the health officials in the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Health Unit who were investigating the outbreak of illnesses in the community. Instead, he misled them by assuring them that the water was safe," Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor wrote in Part 1 of his report of the Walkerton inquiry.
Mr. Patterson's meticulous record-keeping and detailing of the events around the tragedy proved to be a valuable source of information at the inquiry. In the first weekend that the water crisis unfolded, he compiled close to 80 pages of notes, documenting the times and contents of each conversation he had, Mr. Paton said.
While Mr. Patterson was scheduled to take early retirement in the fall of 2000, he remained with the health unit on contract to help with the exhaustive inquiry. Taking the stand at the inquiry was emotionally difficult for Mr. Patterson, particularly when lawyers tried to attack his credibility.
"He was a gentleman during the inquiry," Dr. McQuigge said, adding that his colleague often had to bite his tongue.
A quiet and private person, Mr. Patterson didn't seek the spotlight and said little to the news media during and after the inquiry.
"Walkerton took its toll on everybody," Dr. McQuigge said. "It was tremendously taxing."
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| David's parents, Fred and Mary Patterson, celebrating their 50th anniversary, August 26, 1994 |
It was as a young teen that he developed his lifelong hobby of restoring old cars to mint condition; most of them were 1932-34 Fords. He enjoyed taking his cars out to local fairs and other events and last fall chauffeured his daughter to her wedding in one.
After graduating from Chesley District High School, he attended Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, where he studied public-health inspection. He graduated in 1970, and the same year passed the tests to become a certified public-health inspector. That year, he also married his high-school sweetheart Sharon. They had two children.
Mr. Patterson started work at the age of 19 at the health unit in Owen Sound, where he worked the length of his public-health career.
He began as a public-health inspector and was promoted to a supervisory position first in 1982 and then in 1989, when he became assistant director of health protection with the Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Health Unit.
In the mid-1990s, Mr. Patterson and the health unit were involved in a high-profile court case in which they took a local farmer to court for selling unpasteurized milk. Mr. Patterson couldn't stand the thought that people could be put at undue risk for drinking the unpasteurized milk, Dr. McQuigge said.
"This [public health] was his calling," Dr. McQuigge said. "He was passionate about it."
After the Walkerton inquiry wrapped up, Mr. Patterson left the health unit and went to work for the local conservation authority reviewing people's applications for government grants to improve their water systems.
Mr. Patterson preferred life in small-town Ontario to that in the big city. He enjoyed the outdoors and fequently went on canoeing, hiking and hunting trips with his family.
"He felt strongly about protecting the outdoors," said Sharon, his wife. "He was just a very dedicated person -- he really believed in things."
Mr. Patterson leaves his wife, son Michael, daughter April and his parents.
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| David Patterson and his sisters Lynn, Bonnie Jean, and Heather, August 26, 1994 |
A Wikipedia article summarizes what went wrong in Walkerton:
At the time of the event in May 2000, Stan Koebel was utilities manager for Walkerton, and his brother Frank Koebel was water foreman. Neither had any formal training in this position, retaining their jobs through three decades of on-the-job experience. The water supply, drawn from groundwater, became contaminated with the highly dangerous O157:H7 strain of E. coli bacteria. This contamination was due to farm runoff into an adjacent water well that had been known for years to be vulnerable to groundwater contamination.
Starting May 13, 2000, many people of the community of about 5,000 people began to experience bloody diarrhea, gastrointestinal infections and other symptoms of E. coli infection. For days the Walkerton Public Utilities Commission insisted the water supply was "OK" despite being in possession of laboratory tests that had found evidence of contamination. On 21 May, an escalation in the number of patients with similar symptoms finally spurred a boil-water advisory, warning residents not to drink the tapwater.
The people who died directly from drinking the E. coli-contaminated water might have been saved if the Walkerton Public Utilities Commission had admitted to contaminated water sooner, and about 2,500 became ill.
During the time of the tragedy, both Stan and Frank Koebel denied any wrongdoing and firmly held that the water at Walkerton was safe to drink. However, as the tragedy grew in severity the two were eventually part of the criminal investigation into the tragedy, and, as a result, both would eventually plead guilty to a charge of common nuisance through a plea bargain. In their plea, they admitted to falsifying reports and Frank admitted to drinking on the job, as a beer fridge did exist at the facility.
They were both formally sentenced on December 21, 2004, with Stan receiving one year in jail and Frank Koebel nine months of house arrest.
A more detailed account of the perfect storm that was Walkerton can be found at: https://soapboxie.com/social-issues/The-Walkerton-Incident.
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| Stan Koebel, left, with his brother, Frank [Photo by Kevin Frayer, Canadian Press] |
