Son says Canadian died in U.S. after declining hospital care due to deportation fear

The son of a Canadian woman who died after a fall at her home in Point Roberts, Wash., earlier this month said she refused to seek treatment as she feared she would be detained by U.S. authorities or prevented from returning to the country.

Dylan Adamson said his 61-year-old mother, Paige Adamson, was afraid to leave the United States because immigration authorities had recently commenced deportation proceedings, alleging she illicitly voted in a state election in 2018.

“I’m just at a loss. Just because of a vote, my mom is dead. Just because of a stupid technicality, my mom is dead,” he said in an interview on Friday.

Health care is limited in Point Roberts, which is cut off from the rest of the United States and accessible by land only by travelling through British Columbia. Adamson said his mother refused to be taken to a hospital because she feared being unable to return home because of the deportation action.

He said he only learned of his mother’s fall after speaking with a firefighter who attended the scene of her death last Sunday, within a week of the accident.

The fall came about a month after Paige Adamson, a permanent resident of the United States who had been living in Point Roberts since 2012, was heading home from a dinner to celebrate her birthday in nearby Tsawwassen, B.C., when U.S. border officials held her for hours and questioned her about voting in the country.

His mother did not recall registering to vote or casting a ballot, and the ensuing deportation proceedings sent her into a “panic,” he said.

On top of that stress, dental troubles had been affecting her ability to eat, Adamson said.

“She was very skinny when I saw her. I saw her a couple months ago. So, she was very frail and she tripped,” he said.

Adamson said he understood from speaking with her friends in Point Roberts that she tripped and fell on a vacuum, striking her side, “around her stomach, hip side.”

He said he had also learned that paramedics who saw his mother before her death told her she needed to go to a hospital, but she signed a form declining further care because she was afraid of what might happen if she crossed the border.

“She would have went to the hospital. The only reason she didn’t is out of fear,” said Adamson, who lives in Maple Ridge, B.C.

Had Adamson known about his mother’s fall, he would have driven to see her right away, he added.

He was expecting to learn more details about her death from a medical examiner on Saturday.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2026.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press