While searchers spent three days looking for him, Wesley Stanko lay buried under metal pipes in a room at Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge.
And now officials have launched an investigation into how the 55-year-old man ended up under the pile.
"He said he kept passing out and falling asleep and passing out," said Wesley's 80-year-old mom, Rose Stanko.
Suffering from a brain injury and other physical problems, Wesley was admitted to the Lethbridge hospital last Friday.
Rose said Wesley was looking for a place to have a cigarette when he wandered into a room filled with construction materials on Sunday.
"He fell through them pipes and it was deep," she said.
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Woman Stabbed When She Goes For Smoke
January 28, 2006
CARLSBAD, Calif. -- A 21-year-old woman was stabbed several times early Saturday outside a Carlsbad home when she went outside to smoke a cigarette, police said.
The attack happened in the 900 block of Melaleuca Avenue at about 1:30 a.m., police said.
Officers were called to Tri-City Medical Center in Oceanside, Calif., where the victim was taken following the stabbing.
Emergency room staff stabilized the woman, then she was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, Calif., where a report on her condition was not immediately available.
"We don't know the exact circumstances yet," Carlsbad Police Lt. Neil Gallucci said. "It was just someone who went outside to have a smoke and was attacked."
Prison for Teen who Killed Over Cigarette
October 21, 2004
SAN JOSE (BCN) -- A Campbell teen was sentenced to two years in state prison today for his role in the beating death of a man who refused to hand over a cigarette.
Superior Court Judge Kevin Murphy denied probation for 19-year-old Jason Harden and imposed the maximum sentence based upon the vulnerability of the victim, Harden's active participation in the crime and prior juvenile probation violations.
Harden and a 15-year-old accomplice were walking along Blossom Hill Road near Hoffman Court in San Jose around 11 p.m. on Dec. 22, 2003 when they noticed a man smoking a cigarette, according to Deputy District Attorney Peter Waite.
The two suspects approached 58-year-old Douglas Edward Waltz and asked for a cigarette, a request he denied before being beaten with a flurry of fists.
The teens were apprehended a short distance from the scene of the crime, police said.
Waite said that Waltz, who routinely came out to the front of his apartment to smoke, hit his head on the pavement and lost consciousness.
Just over three weeks later, he died at a local hospital from injuries suffered during the beating and from prior brain damage he suffered many years ago from an accident, according to Waite.
Both Harden and his accomplice had been charged with murder, but after an investigation the charges were reduced to involuntary manslaughter.
Harden pleaded guilty to the involuntary manslaughter charge on Aug. 31.
The 15-year-old accomplice pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in juvenile court.
