[00:00:00]

Wayne Lenhardt

Our next witness is Kristin Ditzel and she’s going to be on screen for us. Kristin, can you hear me?

Kristin Ditzel

I can.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay, you’re fairly low in volume.

Kristin Ditzel

How’s that? Is that better?

Wayne Lenhardt

Yep, I think that’s better.

Kristin Ditzel

Great.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay. Could you give us your full name and then spell it for us, and then I will do an oath with you.

Kristin Ditzel

Kristin Ditzel, K-R-I-S-T-I-N  D-I-T-Z-E-L

Wayne Lenhardt

Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Kristin Ditzel

I do.

Wayne Lenhardt

Thank you. This is going to be about your personal problems after taking the jab, so could you set us a timeline? When and why did you take the vaccine, or the fake vaccine, whatever we want to call it? When did your story start?

Kristin Ditzel

March 16th, 2021. And I took it due to pressure in the health profession.

Wayne Lenhardt

And you live in Nelson BC, correct?

Kristin Ditzel

I do.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay, and you got your shot in Nelson?

Kristin Ditzel

Yes.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay. So what happened after you got your shot?

Kristin Ditzel

Twenty-five minutes after, I was still on site, and I started having anaphylactic-like symptoms and lost full control of my limbs and dropped to the ground.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay. So was this still in the facility? I gather it was a community college where they were having this vaccination event?

Kristin Ditzel

It was, yes.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay. So were you still there when you had this reaction?

Kristin Ditzel

I was. I had left and went to drive away and started getting my symptoms really dramatically. So I just pulled back into the parking lot, walked in, and found the nurses. Sat down, and then they kind of helped me to the ground because I couldn’t control my limbs.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay, so you basically couldn’t walk at that point?

Kristin Ditzel

No, yeah, I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t lift my head. I couldn’t use my arms. I went fully limp. Then they gave me Epi [EpiPen] on site and brought me up to the hospital.

Wayne Lenhardt

And the hospital is also in Nelson?

Kristin Ditzel

It is.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay, so what happened at the hospital?

Kristin Ditzel

They were great. After the Epi, I regained function again. They gave me some Benadryl, and they sent me home and said take Benadryl every 12 hours. And then the next day, my symptoms returned, and I went back up there. I was there for the night; they kept me for the night, and then they sent me home the next day. My symptoms progressed into neurological symptoms: I started losing functioning in my neck and some cognitive functioning, so I went back up on the Sunday a few days later, and I stayed for a week. And then we figured it crossed my blood-brain barrier and attacked multiple regions of my brain.

Wayne Lenhardt

Did the doctors tell you that?

Kristin Ditzel

No, they did not.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay, how did you come to that conclusion?

Kristin Ditzel

Through my GP that I ended up getting once I was injured, that’s how we came to that conclusion. But the neurologist that kept me in the hospital, she knew that it had caused a neurological decline, but she didn’t use that terminology.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay, so this started in March, middle of March, March 16th, and so what happened over, let’s say, the next six months?

Kristin Ditzel

I slowly got worse. I started developing drop foot. I couldn’t lift my head. I couldn’t make eye contact with people. I started losing the ability to speak. I had convulsions, tremors, sometimes to the point where I would dislocate bones. I just shut down, completely.

Wayne Lenhardt

And were you at home for part of this time, or were you in hospital fairly continuously?

[00:05:00]

Kristin Ditzel

They only had me in hospital for that week, and then they said, “We don’t really know what to do with you,” and I was sent home. They did send me to a neurologist in Kelowna, which is about four hours away. But that wasn’t a very good experience. So I was pretty much left in the hands of my GP.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay, how was that not a good experience?

Kristin Ditzel

She refused to say that it was connected to the vaccine. And she diagnosed me with a functional neurological disorder and just said, “You might get better; you might not get better.” That’s it.

Wayne Lenhardt

Right. So we really don’t know what you’re suffering. Is that fair?

Kristin Ditzel

Pretty much. Yeah.

Wayne Lenhardt

So did you get better at some point?

Kristin Ditzel

I have improved. I’m still not working, and still what I would classify as severely disabled. I get a good couple hours a day where I could do things like maybe cook a dinner for my kids, maybe go for a walk, do some laundry, perform some household tasks, but I am not better. No.

Wayne Lenhardt

So at the time of the shot, you did have your own business, correct?

Kristin Ditzel

I was a Chinese medical doctor and I had a full thriving practice.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay, and so what happened to that practice over the next six months?

Kristin Ditzel

It dissolved. Yeah, that’s a really difficult thing to talk about. I just had to shut it down. I couldn’t even communicate very well, so I wasn’t even sending out messages to patients or anything along those lines. My colleagues took control of the situation, and they dealt with it.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay, and so you haven’t practised in your clinic since this incident then?

Kristin Ditzel

No, I had to give up my clinic.

Wayne Lenhardt

Did you have a source of income after this event?

Kristin Ditzel

No, not at all. I was lucky that I had a GoFundMe set up through the community, and the community ensured that I didn’t lose my house and I could feed my kids.

Wayne Lenhardt

And you’re still not working, correct?

Kristin Ditzel

I’m not.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay. Did you get any sort of money coming in? Did you apply for EI or any sort of assistance?

Kristin Ditzel

Because my first disability, well, my first disability claim was denied. I finally got disability close to a year ago, so I do get just over $1,000 a month.

Wayne Lenhardt

Okay, that’s a federal program?

Kristin Ditzel

That is a federal program.

Wayne Lenhardt

So you’ve had that since what, six months?

Kristin Ditzel

Close to a year, I think.

Wayne Lenhardt

Is there any prognosis that you’re going to recover or what are the doctors saying at the moment?

Kristin Ditzel

They don’t really know, to be honest. A lot of people that are diagnosed with functional neurological disorder get better rapidly, and that hasn’t happened for me or any of the other vaccine-injured that I know in my neurological groups. So we don’t really know.

Wayne Lenhardt

There is a vaccine compensation program of some sort that the federal government has set up, have you applied to that?

Kristin Ditzel

I applied immediately. That is the instigator in why the neurologist in Kelowna was so angry. She didn’t want to have anything to do with that program. My local neurologist no longer has anything to do with my case file, and I was denied. So I’m in the appeal process right now.

Wayne Lenhardt

Do you have any actions or appeals pending at the moment?

Kristin Ditzel

I’ve been waiting day by day, hour by hour. My appeal’s happening right now, so I’m hopeful.

Wayne Lenhardt

At this point I’d like to ask the commissioners if they have any questions for you. Dr. Massie.

Commissioner Massie

Well, thank you very much for your testimony. I’m wondering, given the rapidity of occurrence of your symptoms after the injection, I was wondering whether you had COVID previously?

Kristin Ditzel

I did not.

Commissioner Massie

Not to your knowledge. Did you have an antibody test to confirm that?

Kristin Ditzel

No, I did not. But we were very protected, and there was no COVID, locally, in our region. I got COVID after my injury,

[00:10:00]

about five months after, and that made my symptoms obviously worse.

Commissioner Massie

Thank you.

Wayne Lenhardt

Are there any other questions from the Commissioners?

Commissioner Kaikkonen

Good morning. I just wondered, when you were 25 minutes on site, what was the reaction of the people around you?

Kristin Ditzel

They were wonderful, actually. The nurses were incredible. We all just kind of assumed it was a normal anaphylactic reaction. I wasn’t nervous at the time. I thought my body would recover, so did they. I kind of felt bad for the people on site that had to watch me go down and be taken away. But the nursing staff was wonderful.

Commissioner Kaikkonen

Thank you.

Wayne Lenhardt

Any other questions, Commissioners? I think that’s a no, so on behalf of the National Citizens Inquiry, I want to thank you very much for presenting your story and your testimony to us. Thank you again.

Kristin Ditzel

Thank you.

[00:11:16]

Final Review and Approval: Margaret Phillips, August 25, 2023.    

The evidence offered in this transcript is a true and faithful record of witness testimony given during the National Citizens Inquiry (NCI) hearings. The transcript was prepared by members of a team of volunteers using an “intelligent verbatim” transcription method.   

For further information on the transcription process, method, and team, see the NCI website: https://nationalcitizensinquiry.ca/about-these-transcripts/

Kristin Ditzel of Nelson, B.C. had not even left the vaccination injection location at the local community college when she collapsed after her first shot. The nursing staff there gave her an Epipen shot and sent her to hospital. Kristin had lost control of her limbs including not being able to even lift her head. She was in hospital several times and it was determined by her local GP that the shot had crossed the blood-brain barrier and she was in neurological decline.

Six months after her shot in March, Kristin was still declining in health and consequently lost her Chinese medicine practice that was her sole income. Kristin was referred to a neurologist 4 hours away but says the doctor was not supportive and got very angry when Kristin applied for the federal compensation program. Kristin does receive a small disability currently and after being refused at the federal level, she is now in the appeals process.