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On a chilly afternoon at the end of November, Quentel Merasty was at home in the northern community of Pelican Narrows when she realized her four-month old son Guentzel was having a seizure.

Pelican Narrows, population 2,000, is more than an hour’s drive from the nearest hospital in Flin Flon, on the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border. The nearest airstrip to medevac someone out of the community is a bumpy 45-minute drive away, in Sandy Bay.

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The Pelican Narrows nursing station is served by fly-in doctors on one- or two-week rotations. Some days there are no physicians in the community.

Nov. 19 — when Quentel rushed in with her seizing infant — was one of those days.

Quentel Merasty, mother of Guentzel Merasty: He started twitching his one hand and then we called an ambulance right away. The ambulance took long and then we got a ride there. He was still twitching.

Latoya Patterson, a nurse practitioner at the Pelican Narrows nursing station: On presentation he was completely ashen, so his colour was very poor. He was unresponsive. And all his limbs were twitching … I knew that there were circulation issues and, because he was having generalized twitching at four months old, that was a seizure situation.