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Frostbite amputations hit 10-year high in Edmonton last winter, new data show

Original source: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/frostbite-amputations-hit-10-year-high-in-edmonton-last-winter-new-data-show-1.6709778 Retrieved: 2026-07-04 Author/date: Taylor Lambert, CBC News, Jan 11 2023 CBC id: 1.6709778 (Content captured via search-result summary + corroborating Progress Report 309, which quotes the same CBC reporting; the primary CBC page 403s automated fetch but the figures are consistent across the fiscal-series in 1.7358413.)

Key figures

  • Fiscal 2021-22: 91 frostbite amputation codes in Edmonton — the most of any year since at least 2011, "sometimes by a factor of three or four."
  • Data revealed via a freedom-of-information request after a senior AHS communications advisor initially said AHS didn't track it.
  • Physician (Dr. Sandy Dong): "The vast, vast majority of these individuals were unhoused. I can think of one person out of those, I'm going to say, scores, that had a permanent address."

Why it matters

This is the baseline shock — the first FOI that established Edmonton's frostbite-amputation surge and that it lands almost entirely on unhoused bodies. The 91 figure anchors the low end of the fiscal series (91 → 71 → 110 → 113) and predates the December 2023 mass sweeps, so the crisis was already visible before the bulldozers accelerated.