A coroner's jury has ruled that the death of a northern Saskatchewan man who froze after escaping from a police vehicle was accidental.

The ruling came Wednesday at the end of the three-day inquest into the January 2009 death of Kyle Lariviere, 19.

The jury heard Lariviere died after escaping from a locked RCMP truck in Beauval, a village about 410 kilometres north of Saskatoon.

He had been arrested on the nearby Canoe Lake First Nation after bringing alcohol onto the dry reserve.

A police surveillance video played for the jury shows a man reaching out of the truck's open window to unlock the door. It then shows him running away.

Lariviere's body was found on Jan. 11, 2009, 40 hours later, on a snowmobile trail about seven kilometres away from town.

The constable in charge of Lariviere, Mitch Perry, said he thought Lariviere was somewhere safe and didn't tell family members or his superiors about the escape for hours.

Perry apologized to the family and admitted he made several mistakes.

In addition to ruling Lariviere's death accidental, the jury came forward with a number of recommendations.

Those include making the back doors of patrol vehicles more secure and making sure staffing levels in the Beauval area are maintained.