Raymond Silverfox had no place to go the night before he died in police custody.

The Carmacks man had driven into Whitehorse with friends the night of Dec. 1, 2008, but had been kicked out of the van because of an argument.

Walking around the city at 30 below, he and his girlfriend couldn't get into any hotels, so they went to the Salvation Army shelter on Fourth Avenue.

Details of the days and hours before Silverfox's death were heard by a six-person coroner's jury Thursday and today, as the inquest into the 43-year-old man's death began.

At around 3 a.m., after Silverfox had thrown up on the floor several times, the shelter staff wanted him out, so they called the ambulance to take him away.

When Silverfox was given the choice between going to the hospital and spending the rest of the night in the drunk tank, he chose the drunk tank – where he was found unconscious 16 hours later. Two and a half hours later, he was dead.

Following Silverfox's death, Little Salmon-Carmacks First Nation Chief Eddie Skookum described Silverfox as a good man and a hard worker. That assessment was echoed yesterday by the man's former boss.

"His work was excellent,” said William Anthony Erith, a supervisor with the Carmacks Development Corp., where Silverfox worked as a plumber and handyman. "There was nothing he couldn't do or couldn't fix.”

The only times Silverfox wasn't 100 per cent reliable was after a weekend of drinking, Erith said, which would happen every "couple of months.”

He didn't drink often, his girlfriend told the court, and when he did, he would usually get sick, vomiting and shaking the day after a binge.

The jury heard Silverfox hadn't shown up to work the Monday before his death, and Erith had gone to his house looking for him. When Silverfox answered the door, "he looked pretty beaten up,” Erith said.

Silverfox, who Erith described as "a passive guy,” said he'd been in a fight and had gotten kicked in the kidneys

The supervisor told Silverfox to go to the nursing centre and come to work when he was feeling better.

Questions about Silverfox's health in the days and weeks leading up to his death have been put to every witness who knew Silverfox personally, including his boss, his girlfriend and the two friends he was drinking with the night before he died.

His girlfriend, Jill Skookum, said other than a single complaint of back pain some time in the weeks before he died, Silverfox never mentioned his health. But friend and workmate Raymond Hartling said Silverfox complained of coughing up blood, though he couldn't remember when that was said.

Hartling said he and his girlfriend Jenny Skookum went to Silverfox's on Monday, Dec. 1 to celebrate his birthday.

When they arrived, Jenny said, Jill was quite drunk and Silverfox "was getting there.” They were working on a 750-ml bottle of vodka, which they shared with their guests.

Then Silverfox said he wanted to go to Whitehorse and would pay for the gas to get them there and back. They all piled into Hartling's van and headed to the capital, taking the vodka with them.

Once in the vehicle, Jill passed out, Jenny and Hartling said, and Silverfox sat slumped behind the driver's seat. The group continued drinking on the way in to town, finishing the first bottle of vodka

Once in town, Jenny and Jill got into an argument over the remaining bottle of vodka, Jenny said. Jill kicked her and Silverfox out of the van and drove to Tag's to get gas and some food.

It was cold out, Hartling said, and the pair had nowhere to stay and no way to get back to Carmacks, so he drove around looking for his friend. After three turns around town, Hartling and Jill gave up and drove back home.

"That was the last time I seen him,” Hartling said.

Neither was dressed for the cold, Jill told the coroner's jury yesterday, and they walked straight to the Westmark Whitehorse Hotel, hoping to get a room.

The front doors were locked so they headed to the Stratford with no success. The Salvation Army was their last option and when they arrived, Jill promptly passed out on one of the tables.

Judy Lightning, who has worked at the shelter almost since it opened, told the jury she had never seen Silverfox before, but had seen Jill.

In her log book, Lighting noted the two were "no trouble, but Ray was like a zombie.”

On the stand today, she said Silverfox was very intoxicated and wasn't responding to her questions and instructions. "He wasn't passed out, but he was in blackout,” she said.

This assessment differed greatly from the one done by the ambulance attendants who were called to the shelter after Silverfox began throwing up.

Lightning called the ambulance, she said, because she needed to clean up and start getting breakfast ready.

He certainly couldn't be sent out into the cold, she said, and he couldn't be put in the empty medical bed in Dorm C because there was no one to monitor him.

Calling 911 was the shelter staff's only option much of the time, she said, but even that wasn't a reliable solution.

"We were in a bind at that time,” Lightning explained. "You call the police, they say, ‘Call the ambulance.' You call the ambulance, they say, ‘Why don't you call the police?'”

In this case, the ambulance arrived, and according to the two attendants who testified Thursday and today, Silverfox was not in as bad a condition as Lightning thought he was. They rated him a five on a sobriety scale of one to 10, and gave him a 15 out of 15 on a responsiveness test.

Lightning noted that when the police came to take him away, she was surprised at how steady Silverfox was. She said it isn't unusual for people to sober up a bit when the police arrive.

The police were called, the paramedics said, because he refused to go to the hospital, and there was nothing in their assessment to indicate he needed medical attention.

Most of his vital signs were normal, according to Jillian Smith and Andrew McCan, except for his heart rate, which was slightly above normal.

That could have been caused by the vomiting, McCan said. The paramedics did not take Silverfox's temperature, but both defended that decision saying he was not cool or warm to touch, and they saw no other reason to suspect he had a fever.

During McCan's testimony, it was revealed Silverfox had pneumonia when he died.

At the end of the assessment, Smith said she asked Silverfox if he wanted to go to the hospital, and he said no. He couldn't stay at the shelter and he couldn't go outside, she said, so the RCMP cells were the only other option.

"I don't think drinking takes away your right to make decisions,” she said when challenged on her decision.

"I am not allowed to kidnap people and take them to the hospital .... If I felt Raymond was unable to make his own decisions, I would have made him go to the hospital.”

When asked if Silverfox was arrested because he was making trouble, Lighting replied, "No, he wasn't and I said that over and over (to the RCMP officers).”

When the police took him back to the detachment, Silverfox was charged with causing a disturbance. The officers who picked him up have not yet testified in the inquest.

Sharon Hanley, the Yukon's chief coroner, is presiding over the inquest.

The jury will made a finding of how Silverfox died and may make recommendations at the end of the hearing. A coroner's inquest is held whenever a citizen dies in police custody.

The inquest is scheduled to run until next Friday.