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U.S. study finds abuse in ambulances

 
By The Associated Press | Published: December 12, 2008    Comment on this article Leave a comment

DALLAS — They answer the call 24-7, often risking their own safety to save the sick and injured and rush them to the hospital. But some paramedics have been more predator than hero.

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AT A GLANCE
EMT abuse cases

Some of the cases include:


• A Standish, Mich., paramedic sent to prison in March for molesting a girl who was on her way to the hospital after she was injured at her 15th birthday party.


• A Pinellas County, Fla., paramedic arrested in July after he allegedly sexually assaulted a woman in an ambulance en route to a hospital.


• A Chattanooga, Tenn., EMT accused in a lawsuit of giving a 30-year-old woman an extra dose of morphine and then completely undressing her in the back of an ambulance even though her injuries were minor.

The numbers
State health officials in 23 states reported receiving sex-related complaints involving EMS workers. New York reported the most complaints — 17. Texas reported 13 complaints

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Over the past 18 months, at least 129 ambulance attendants across the U.S. have been accused of sex-related crimes on duty or off, an investigation by The Associated Press found. Some of them molested patients in the back of an ambulance.

"It’s a dream job for a sexual predator,” said Greg Kafoury, a Portland, Ore., lawyer who represents three women who were groped by a paramedic.

Across the U.S., emergency medical technicians have been accused in recent months of such crimes as rape, soliciting minors over the Internet and possession of child porn, according to an AP survey of the state agencies that oversee those professions.

Several EMS officials said the number of complaints is troubling but does not necessarily point to an industrywide problem.

Twenty-eight states do not automatically bar known sex offenders from working as EMTs, the AP survey found.

Twenty-two states do.

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Related Topics: Health and Fitness, Emergency Medicine



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