Grief deepens with alcohol link to freezing deaths of 2 toddlers in Sask. | Canada

Grief deepens with alcohol link to freezing deaths of 2 toddlers in Sask.

YELLOW QUILL, Sask. - The grief on a Saskatchewan First Nation deepened Wednesday morning with the discovery of the tiny body of a toddler frozen in knee-deep snow near her home - the day after her younger sister's body was found in the same condition.
Searchers located Cadence Pauchay, 3, a short distance from where her one-year-old sister Santana was discovered. Police said the younger girl was clad only in a T-shirt and diaper, and her sister was "similarly attired." There was little chance of survival since the temperature with wind chill had dipped around -50 C.	Search & Rescue search's for the toddlers
The search for the children was launched after their father, Christopher Pauchay, 25, was picked up about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday suffering from frostbite and hypothermia.

He was taken from the Yellow Quill reserve east of Saskatoon to hospital in nearby Kelvington, but it wasn't until eight hours later that he asked about the condition of his daughters.

His mother, Pearl Pauchay, called her son a good father who took care of his children, but she said she understood he'd been drinking on the night in question.

She said she spoke to her son in hospital Tuesday evening, and he was "complaining about his daughters he left in the field. 'I left my babies in the field,' he was telling the RCMP."

He had "no clue at all" what happened, she said.

"When I went to see him yesterday evening, he couldn't remember what happened. He was out of it."

Pearl Pauchay accompanied RCMP officers on a house-to-house search Tuesday but couldn't find any sign of the kids. She originally thought they might be with their mother, who doesn't live on the reserve.

Santana's body was found Tuesday night. By Wednesday morning, dozens of community members and RCMP officers were walking shoulder-to-shoulder and using poles to push through the deep snow looking for Cadence.

"I don't like to talk much," said the grief-stricken grandmother. "It's sad to have a loss."

She insisted her son was a loving father. He wept when he heard his children had died, she said.

"He took care of them most of the time, those girls. He was attached to them. When the mother goes somewhere (to) party he used to keep them," she said.

"They were happy with their father. They were always taken care of.

"They were happy little girls."

Chief Robert Whitehead said the tragedy has hit the family of the girls - and the entire community of about 800 - hard.

"(They're) normally a very happy family, so they were very quiet," he said. "It's not the kind of family that would normally be quiet so I think they're feeling pretty desperate.

"It's a pretty sad day for us over here."

RCMP Sgt. Brad Kaeding said police also believed alcohol was a factor in the tragedy.

"Our belief at this point is that they probably left the house together, the girls with the father, and unfortunately they didn't make it to the neighbour's house as he did," said Kaeding.