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Randy fled after hours in 'the cell'
Mother believes autistic son left centre when he became desperate over confinement in sparse room
By John Burman
The Hamilton Spectator
SPECIAL TO THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR
Randy Mogridge is pictured in his mother's favourite photo. He was known for his big grin and well-liked by those who supported
him.
On the last day of his life, Randy Mogridge was up before the sun. It was an early start to what was to be a typical day for the
46-year-old non-verbal autistic man from Hamilton who had lived at the Oaklands Regional Centre for more than 20 years, It did
not end that way.
The Ministry of Community and Social Services' confidential report on what happened to Randy that day offers a disturbing look
at what typical meant for him.
For Randy, Sunday, Oct. 24, 2004, included about eight hours of confinement in a sparse room -- a confinement or isolation
room meant only for short term "timeouts." His longer confinement was against centre policies and never officially recorded by
centre staff. The day ended with Randy's escape from the centre and his subsequent fatal tumble into nearby Sixteen Mile Creek
where he drowned.
The course of Randy's final day is detailed in the ministry report, a copy of which was obtained by The Spectator.
Randy -- all of five-and-a-half feet tall and 134 pounds -- was up and raring to go just before 4 a.m., clapping his hands and
yelling. He was racing as he came out of his first floor bedroom in the residence he shared with 11 others.
Randy often had times when he would yell, clap, pound on walls, open and close doors, flush toilets and take his clothes on and
off. He would also pace back and forth or in a circuit.
During these times, he would get little sleep and be more difficult to feed and could become aggressive to other residents and
staff.
The blond, blue-eyed man did not speak to express himself and relied on body language and soulful facial expressions.
He usually sported a big grin, loved the outdoors and swimming and although he could be a handful, he was well-liked by those
who supported him.
Randy was probably the first resident up that day and, lest others be disturbed, the overnight worker promptly led him to the
confinement timeout (CTO) room, about two metres wide and three or four metres long with no windows and a locked door with a
vision port.
The door was closed and Randy began banging on the walls, clapping and pacing for the next three and a half hours. This was
not unusual. In fact, the report indicates Randy spent similar time in isolation over the course of the two previous days.
During the search for Randy after he left his home that Sunday evening and 15 days later when divers recovered his small body
from Sixteen Mile Creek, his mother Gloria Mogridge of Hamilton, and brother, Dean, of Mount Hope, told all who would listen that
Randy liked to move, liked to ride free on a bicycle around their old farm in Mount Hope and could cover great distances as a
determined walker. It was his nature.
Despite this, he was not known at Oaklands as a "runner" or a "wanderer." He was not high on anyone's list as someone to watch
for flight.
Why did he try to leave the house three times that afternoon before finally getting away sometime around 7 p.m.? His mother wept
for her son when she read the ministry's report.
"He was confined for hours and hours in that room. He was in there a lot the day before and the day before that. He would be so
frustrated," she said.
"What must it have been like for him, becoming more and more desperate?
"It upsets me to think of him locked in there on his last day, pounding on the door, confused and wanting to leave."
If Randy was restless and pacing, confinement would only add to his behaviour, Gloria believes.
Parents who have had adult children at Oaklands call the timeout room "a cell."
Oaklands' policy dictates confinement be used only as a last resort after other interventions including medication have been tried.
And then confinement is only to be undertaken for no more than 15 minutes without the approval and explicit direction of the
manager, designated manager in charge or an on-call manager.
There is no record of Randy's confinement being recorded on an incident report, no record of his isolation being reported to a
manager.
Randy was taken out of the confinement room around 7:30 a.m. and had a large drink of apple juice before 8 a.m. Then he was
placed outside on the patio attached to the house. Like the time out room, it's a secure place. He could not leave.
Randy paced on the patio for another two hours, taking his coat off and on. A day worker gave him more juice and some yogurt at
9 a.m. He stayed on the patio until a second day worker brought him inside for a muffin and yogurt around 10 a.m.
At some point later, Randy shook his fist at another resident and was sent back out to the patio for another 15 or 20 minutes.
Randy had his lunch in the confinement room with the door open, because, as was explained later, "it calmed him." Randy circled
the room while the worker offered him spoonfuls of food as he passed the open door.
Lunch was being cleared away and some staff said later Randy was wandering through the house pacing again. Another worker
recalled Randy was confined after lunch. Around 2:45 p.m., one of the workers suggested letting him out because the house was
quieter after a group had left on an outing.
At about 3 p.m., Randy's "typical day" took a very unusual turn. He left. For the first of four times.
He headed out through a breezeway door. The worker in the house did not hear the door alarm but spotted Randy as he passed
the kitchen window and brought him back.
Randy went out the same door a few minutes later. A support worker heard the alarm. This time she locked the door after she
brought him back.
At 3:20 p.m., a worker from another house returning with another resident from a local coffee shop found Randy standing in a
park a block from Oaklands. It took 10 minutes to coax Randy to return to Oaklands.
The worker said Randy was passive and "catatonic" and shuffled his feet just two or three inches at a time as he walked back.
When they got to Randy's house, he told the support worker inside what had happened. She thought the colleague was joking
about where he found Randy. She didn't believe he had actually gone that far that quickly.
Nevertheless, she said later she put her arm around his shoulders and he walked into the confinement timeout room and closed
the door.
Although three escapes in about half an hour were highly out of character for Randy, these incidents were not reported to senior
managers. No action was taken to assess the likelihood Randy might leave again.
Staff did, however, decide to put him in confinement again for the rest of the afternoon so that could get chores done.
Randy came out for supper between 5 and 6 p.m. One worker remembered feeding him as he paced in the dining room. Another
said he was fed in confinement.
Either way, Randy left confinement and roamed the house between 6 and 7:30 p.m.
There are two versions of what happened next. Both agree Randy disappeared for the fourth and last time at "pajama time"
around 7:30 p.m.
One worker recalled Randy pacing upstairs as she was putting pajamas on another resident downstairs. When it was time for
Randy to get his pajamas on, she couldn't find him. After the second floor had been checked, staff looked in the parking lot and
then up and down Bond Street across the front of the residence before calling the designated manager in charge and reporting
him missing.
The other recollection has Randy sitting at a table on the ground floor. The first hint he was gone was when a staff member heard
the door to a fire exit closing. He searched the common areas and bedrooms on the ground floor to see if Randy had fallen
asleep somewhere. Suspecting Randy had gone outside, he called the designated manager in charge and reported him missing.
With the clock ticking, the manager initiated the centre's missing person response and broadcast his physical appearance
through the centre.
Armed with walkie-talkies, the staff began to search the main buildings and grounds.
Halton police were called between 8:05 and 8:10 and the first officer arrived at 8:20 p.m. Among the first officers to follow the first
cruiser into the grounds over the next few minutes was a trained "search master" officer who began to co-ordinate the first
moments of a massive police search that would cover the next 15 days, turn out hundreds of volunteers, dogs, helicopters and
divers before Randy was found.
Teams were sent running east and west down Bond Street because Randy was known to walk in a straight line until he ran into a
barrier.
By 8:30 p.m. taxi and bus drivers had been alerted to Randy's description and the local area was re-checked, looking in every
room and checking bushes on the grounds. Soon, search teams on foot and in cars were combing Oakville within a mile radius of
Oaklands.
At 8:40 p.m. the designated manager on duty called the executive director and told her what had happened.
Sheila Masters picked up the phone and called Gloria Mogridge to tell her at 9:10 p.m. that Randy was missing.
Police searched throughout that night, broadening the search in subsequent days then calling it off.
West of the centre along Bond, one comes to Kerr Street, a busy Oakville artery. To the east lies a steep embankment, trees and
Sixteen Mile Creek
Sixteen Mile Creek never stops. Like Randy on his last day, it is always moving, flowing through the town to Lake Ontario. Little
more than 300 metres from the front door of the Oaklands Regional Centre, the creek is where divers found Randy's body, 15
days after he disappeared.
Searchers found one running shoe with Randy's initials in it, partway down the bank in amongst the trees and fallen maple leaves.
They believe he drowned, presumably shortly after he made his fourth and final escape from his residence house.