Ambulance Workers To Face Discipline In a Death in Bronx....

[MAGICFITZPATRICK]

Two Emergency Medical Service ambulance workers face disciplinary action because they waited for sandwiches in a Bronx delicatessen before responding to a report that a man was suffering a heart attack in a church one block away, officials said yesterday.

Two Emergency Medical Service ambulance workers face disciplinary action because they waited for sandwiches in a Bronx delicatessen before responding to a report that a man was suffering a heart attack in a church one block away, officials said yesterday.

The heart attack victim, Anthony Solla, 68 years old, died Wednesday at North Central Bronx Hospital.

''We found that the crew failed to respond immediately to the request,'' said James Kerr, director of the Emergency Medical Service. ''Our procedures require that they respond immediately.''

Mr. Kerr said he did not know whether the delay contributed to the victim's death, but insisted that ''even if the delay did not figure in the patient's demise the crew still failed to follow our procedure.'' On Lunch Break

Mr. Solla suffered the attack at 8:30 P.M. Wednesday in a first-floor meeting room of the Church of the Mediator, at Kingsbridge Avenue and 231st Street in the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, the authorities said. Friends of Mr. Solla who found the two ambulance crew members in the delicatessen and asked for assistance said the two responded that they were on a lunch break.

''It seems that they waited for their sandwiches before calling the dispatcher,'' Mr. Kerr said in a telephone interview.

The preliminary investigation determined that the two paramedics, whose names have not been released, remained in the store for four minutes, he said, before leaving and calling the dispatcher. It took seven more minutes for them to get to the church, one block away.

Under E.M.S. regulations, Mr. Kerr said, the two should have left the delicatessen immediately and called the ambulance dispatcher while en route.

The paramedics have been reassigned to office duties pending a disciplinary hearing, Mr. Kerr said. They face possible suspension or dismissal.

Mr. Kerr said one had joined the Emergency Medical Service in 1984 and the other in 1985.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...751C0A96E948260

[Dustdevil]

Mr. Kerr said one had joined the Emergency Medical Service in 1984 and the other in 1985.

Them dudes burned out YEARS ago.

Sack 'em. Leave them with nothing to show for twenty years but a bad attitude and a bad back.

[MAGICFITZPATRICK]

Can someone say JADED!

This one moment of bad judgement will define their entire career

[SARgal]

Can someone say JADED!

This one moment of bad judgment will define their entire career

As it should.

SARgal

[8151]

What kind of sandwich was it? Dinks.

[Richard B the EMT]

Them dudes burned out YEARS ago.

Sack 'em. Leave them with nothing to show for twenty years but a bad attitude and a bad back.

Jim Kerr? I thought this was a brand new News story. The events described happened around 1987!Both EMTs were removed from any "Patient Contact" duties for almost a year before the NYS DoH investigation resulted in their EMT certificates revocation (and without their EMT certs, they were both fired by the NYC EMS), and as there were threats of violence against the NYC EMS, the vehicle they used was taken out of service and stored for a week outside EMS headquarters, and then replaced with another, older vehicle, while the original vehicle was transferred to a garage in a different boro (county). That last, because the vehicle's "shop number" had been published in all the NYC daily newspapers. The unit, 21-David, was nicknamed, by those in the service, as 21-"Deli" (there is no correlation between a shop number and the radio designation).

They even moved the street corner 21-David was supposed to sit at between calls to one almost a quarter mile away.

Jim Kerr has not been with EMS from at least the time of the EMS/FDNY merger, which happened March 17, 1997.

[MAGICFITZPATRICK]

Opps!

[Richard B the EMT]

Just doublechecked the article, was the New York Times of February 21, 1988.

Link

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...751C0A96E948260

[Dustdevil]

Just doublechecked the article, was the New York Times of February 21, 1988.

LOL!

How the heck does something like this happen?

You been time travelling again, Magic? :?

[FormerEMSLT297]

When I saw the name Jim Kerr, that was the first thing I thought ,,, he was so 1980's,,,, way, way, way, pre merger.

a hint was it didnt say FDNY EMS anywhere in the story