Man who suffered frostbite during chase was just out of jail
A man who allegedly stole a snowmobile police used to track him and then fled hospital despite suffering “extreme frostbite” had only recently been released from jail.
Blake Beaulieu, 33, was sentenced last month to the equivalent of seven-and-a-half months in jail for a variety of offences, including theft of a motor vehicle, driving while prohibited and resisting arrest.
Beaulieu had already served about six-and-a-half months in custody at the time of his sentencing hearing in Portage la Prairie on Jan. 24.
SUPPLIED Blake Beaulieu, 33, has been charged with theft, flight from a peace officer and possession of a firearm.
Provincial court Judge Rob Finlayson, who was told Beaulieu has struggled with an addiction to methamphetamine, sentenced him to an additional year of supervised probation and ordered that he participate in a residential treatment program, if a bed becomes available.
“You get help before it’s too late,” Finlayson said. “You are going to go downhill fast if you continue to use (meth)… Get some help and get off this stuff.”
RCMP asked for the public’s help Friday in finding Beaulieu after he left hospital.
Ste. Rose du Lac RCMP received a report of a possible impaired driver in a pickup truck in Ebb and Flow First Nation at about 11:15 a.m. Thursday. Officers found the truck by the community’s arena and tried to stop the driver, who left the truck at a home on Lake Road Northeast
The truck had been reported stolen from Austin. A sawed-off shotgun was found in the vehicle, police said.
The suspect threw off some of his clothing while fleeting into the bush on foot, RCMP said in a news release.
Safety officers from Ebb and Flow and the local fire department helped Mounties search for the man, who used a police dog, a drone and multiple snowmobiles.
The man was found in deep snow by officers on a snowmobile, but he managed to escape and drive away on the machine, RCMP said.
The man, who wasn’t wearing shoes, was arrested after the machine became stuck in snow a short distance away and began walking towards a road.
He was taken to hospital in serious condition. RCMP were told at about 8 a.m. Friday that the man had left the hospital with the help of an unknown person, apparently earlier that morning.
RCMP said at the time that his medical condition might be life-threatening.
Police announced Saturday that the man had been found in Sandy Bay First Nation “thanks to tips from the public” and was returned to the hospital.
Blake Beaulieu, 33, of Sandy Bay First Nation has been charged with theft, flight from a peace officer and possession of a firearm.
RCMP said in a news release in 2023 that Beaulieu was one of two people arrested after a stolen off-road vehicle drove in and out of yards in the Municipality of Westlake-Gladstone early on Nov. 8. He was charged with possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000, mischief and two counts of resisting/obstructing a peace officer and was already wanted on warrants for a number of offences, including two assaults and robbery.
fpcity@freepress.mb.ca
Dean Pritchard
Courts reporter
Dean Pritchard is courts reporter for the Free Press. He has covered the justice system since 1999, working for the Brandon Sun and Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 2019. Read more about Dean.
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