Samwel Uko of Abbotsford, B.C., is remembered for his smile and love of football. (Facebook)

By Adriana Christianson

Family of man who died at Wascana Lake says he begged for help at hospital

May 28, 2020 | 11:20 AM

The family of Samwel Uko is speaking out with a message that the 20-year-old football player begged for help at hospital hours before taking his own life at Wascana Lake in Regina last week.

“I need people to know he was a good kid. He wanted to live, I know he wanted to live, but it was too much for him. To decide to kill himself, it was too much for him and he couldn’t handle it anymore,” Uko’s uncle, Justin Nye, said Wednesday.

“I want people to know that we need to do more,” Nye said, his voice cracking with emotion.

Nye currently lives in Calgary but was always close to his nephew.

Nye lived with his oldest brother’s family when Uko was born and moved to Canada from South Sudan with them in 2005. Nye remembers his nephew as a happy kid with a smile so big that you couldn’t be angry with him, even when he broke things around the house.

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“Samwel was very happy. He always had to find a way to make you smile,” Nye said. “It doesn’t matter how was your day (or) what was going on in your life, he would always come to you. He would smile, he would dance — when he was young, he loved to dance.”

Thinking back on what Uko was like as a child makes his uncle miss him even more.

After the family moved to Abbotsford, B.C., when Uko was five, the boy fell in love with watching football on TV even when other kids would have been watching cartoons. By the time Uko started school, he loved the sport even more and started playing on a team when he was eight or nine.

“It meant everything for him. That’s all he wanted to do all his life. That’s what he wanted to be known for, to be a football player,” Nye said.

Uko moved to Saskatoon to play running back with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies, something his uncle said was like a dream come true. Nye said the family never saw the slightest sign that behind Uko’s happy, smiling nature, he may have been struggling with some kind of mental health issue.

“We would have picked it up if there was something unusual in his behaviour, but no, he was just happy, enjoying life and the only thing he ever wanted to do was play football,” Nye said.

Uko was home in Abbotsford with his family this spring when he decided to visit his aunt and cousins in Regina on May 19. The next morning, he woke up telling them he was hearing voices in his head and that people were coming to kill him.

Uko’s relatives were alarmed by his behaviour and his cousin drove him to the hospital on May 21. But Uko had to go in alone because of the COVID-19 policy against visitors.

“Inside the hospital, I’m not aware of what happened or what did not happen; I’m not sure,” said Nye, who was in Calgary at the time. “The only thing I know is there was a video of him that he posted on SnapChat. It looked like he was inside the hospital saying, ‘I need help, I need help.’ ”

During the night of May 21, Uko’s relatives were surprised by a visit from Regina police who asked to check on Uko; that’s when they discovered his empty bedroom.

To Nye, the video along with a single Facebook post with the same words are signs his nephew could have been saved.

“It kills me that he was strong enough to be able to write on Facebook, ‘I need help.’ He was strong enough to be able to go to the hospital; that tells me he wanted help. I think he wanted to hang on to life, but we failed him,” Nye said with emotion.

Through their family’s grief and pain, Nye wants other people to learn from his nephew’s story and to pay attention to those they love, saying even if they seem like they are happy and living their dreams, you never know when someone is battling their own demons and what they are truly going through.

Nye asks that health-care professionals look beyond the proper procedures because when someone is in mental distress, filling out a form might be too much to handle.

“His mental capacity was not there for him to be able to fill out the paper that they gave him. It was just another thing to add on top of what he is dealing with,” Nye said.

Nye also expressed a sincere wish to break more of the stigma around mental health issues, saying everyone needs to talk about it more.

The Saskatchewan Health Authority is aware of the video appearing to show a young man pleading for help, describing it as “heartbreaking to see this young man’s distress.”

“We are investigating the video fully to determine where and when it may have been taken and the circumstances surrounding it, and will work with other agencies as needed to ensure this is fully reviewed. Until such time as we are able to finish our investigation we are not able to determine what occurred,” Lisa Thomson, a media relations consultant with the SHA, wrote in an email.

Along with expressing condolences to the man’s family and friends, the SHA is encouraging them to reach out by phone to patient advocacy services.