Category: In The News

Jan. 24, 2023 The Westfield firefighters allege retaliation for reporting sexual misconduct.

By Luis Fieldman Source masslive.com (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Three firefighters in the Westfield Fire Department are suing the city and its fire commission, alleging retaliation after being terminated in 2019. Last year, the state ordered the city to rescind the three firefighter’s terminations and found that they engaged in lawful work activity when they cooperated with a Massachusetts State Police investigation into then-Deputy Chief Patrick Egloff.

The plaintiffs — Captain Rebecca Boutin and firefighters Kyle Miltimore and David Kennedy — allege that they were fired in retaliation for reporting allegations of sexual harassment by now-Fire Chief Egloff to state police. Attorneys for the city and fire commissioners argue that the three firefighters were “terminated because of violations of the rules, regulations, and operating procedures of the Westfield Fire Department,” according to court documents.

Boutin, Miltimore and Kennedy are currently employed with the fire department, a city official confirmed with MassLive on Monday. In November, the state Department of Labor Relations upheld a previous order issued to the city to reinstate the firefighters after the city’s fire commission had decided to terminate them in December 2019 based on an investigation conducted by a private attorney appointed by city official. 

A trial for the case is set for April 4, 2023, in Hampden Superior Court.

The attorney for the three firefighters, Maurice Chillane, did not return a request for comment.

In early 2018, members of the Westfield Fire Department, including Kennedy, met at Miltimore’s home to discuss allegations that Egloff had inappropriately touched two female hospital employees and one department employee during a 2016 St. Patrick’s Day parade in a neighboring town, according to court documents. Boutin had also reportedly attempted to discuss her concerns about Egloff with then-Fire Chief May Regan, but Regan declined to speak with Boutin.

Egloff, Mayor Michael McCabe and members of the city’s Fire Commission did not return requests for comment.

After the meeting at his home, Miltimore discussed his concerns with a Massachusetts State Police officer and asked what he should do, court documents state. Shortly after, a state trooper from the Hampden County District Attorney’s Office called Miltimore and set up a meeting to learn more about what Miltimore knew and told him that an investigation into the allegations against Egloff was underway.

As state police began interviewing potential witnesses, and other members of the Westfield Fire Department learned about the investigation, Miltimore claims he became ostracized within the department as another deputy fire chief told firefighters not to speak with cooperating witnesses.

On February 22, 2018, city officials received an anonymous letter signed by the “Westfield firefighters” that repeated the allegations. The letter further accused Egloff of engaging in workplace misconduct and unprofessional behavior, including acting in a “gross sexual manner verbally and physically” to department employees and pulling employees’ hair, according to a report issued by the Department of Labor Relations.

Meanwhile, state police closed the investigation on Feb. 28, 2018, based on a “lack of cooperative victims and no charges sought or brought forward in the case,” according to court documents.

After receiving the letter, city officials hired attorney Dawn McDonald to investigate the allegations, who issued a report in August 2018 finding that some of the allegations against Egloff were true, including that he had sexually assaulted a hospital nurse during the parade, pulled employees’ hair, made a sexually crude comment to a crew of firefighters about then- Chief Regan, and publicly screamed and swore at Boutin over giving away Thanksgiving dinners, an incident later described as “Pie-Gate,” according to the Department of Labor Relations.

The report by McDonald, however, also concluded that the three firefighters be terminated for not following the chain of command with their accusation against Egloff, and that they made the allegations in bad faith and had conspired to discredit Egloff’s reputation and prevent his imminent promotion to chief of the department.

The Board of Fire Commissioners agreed with the investigator’s recommendations and after a two-day hearing, terminated all three firefighters in December 2019.

In 2020, the union representing the firefighters filed a prohibited practice charge with the Department of Labor Relations alleging that the city had terminated the three firefighters for engaging in protected, concerted activity under Massachusetts law. A hearing officer ordered the city to reinstate Boutin, Kennedy and Miltimore and pay them back for lost benefits in wages.

The city lost on appeal in November.

The firefighters are seeking compensation for damages for what they describe as retaliation for reporting sexual harassment; discrimination based on reporting allegations of sexual assault and harassment; being threatened and intimidated for cooperating in a state police investigation; and violations of public policy.

The lawsuit also named fire commissioners Albert Masciadrelli, Patrick Olearcek, Carlo Bonavita, C. Lee Bennett, and Jeffrey Siegel as defendants.

Jan. 23, 2023 The driver was pronounced dead in the truck that stopped feet from the Westside Volunteer Fire Department.

Source Firehouse.com News

A fire station in Bivalve was nearly struck by a pickup truck Monday.

For unknown reasons, a 2001 Dodge truck veered off Nanticoke Road, struck metal bollards and caught fire, according to a release from the Maryland State Fire Marshal’s Office.

The truck stopped feet away from The Westside Volunteer Fire Department. Once the flames were extinguished, a sole occupant was found deceased inside the wreckage.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation by the Maryland State Police Crash Team.  

Jan. 23, 2023 Merrimack Fire Capt. Rick Gagne said the man made it to the island and called 9-1-1.

By Paul Feely Source The New Hampshire Union Leader, Manchester (TNS) b Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Jan. 22—Merrimack firefighters rescued a man off an island at Naticook Lake Sunday after he called for help when ice began to loosen around him while snowshoeing, officials said.

Merrimack Fire Capt. Rick Gagne said his department received a call around 11:30 a.m. Sunday from a man on Blueberry Island, looking for help getting back to the shore on Naticook Lake.

The man told Merrimack fire personnel he had been snowshoeing on the lake when he heard what sounded like the ice “loosening up” around him, and made his way to the island to call for help.

“That’s the smartest thing he could have done in that situation,” said Gagne, adding the ice layer appeared to be just 2 inches thick in places.

Gagne said he and two other members of the department suited up in protective gear, loaded a raft into the lake, and proceeded to swim out to Blueberry Island in the frigid water.

“We were able to break up a path in the ice to get there,” said Gagne. “It’s actually pretty hot in those outfits once we start working.”

Once on site, Gagne said the man — whose name was not released — was given a lifejacket and loaded into the raft, before being pulled across the lake to safety by members of the department waiting on shore.

Gagne and two other firefighters swam back across. No injuries were reported.

Gagne said the incident is a good reminder that the ice on many bodies of water, especially in the southern part of the state, isn’t thick enough to be venturing out on at this time.

“The snow we’re expecting can make it look like it’s safe, but in most places it’s not right now,” Gagne said. “The snow can act like an insulator, and takes the ice longer to thicken up.”

Jan. 23, 2023 Lincoln Chief David Englar says the staffing shortage has not reached a state of alarm.

By Andrew Wegley Source Lincoln Journal Star, Neb. (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Jan. 22—The increasingly demanding medical needs of a growing city combined with a decline in paramedic applications has left Lincoln Fire and Rescue leaders — and their union counterparts — bracing for a paramedic shortage.

But for now, the staffing situation within Lincoln’s fire department has not reached a state of alarm, Chief Dave Engler insists.

The department employs 76 paramedics who are eligible to work shifts on one of the city’s seven ambulance units — approximately 30 more paramedics than the department would need to get by if staffing levels reached a “doomsday scenario,” Engler said.

But the growing burden placed on Lincoln’s first responders, department scheduling procedures, labor contract details and a shrinking pool of qualified applicants could one day combine to accelerate a staffing shortage — forcing Engler and the department to prepare for, or at least consider, such a scenario.

“Yes and no,” Engler said after contemplating whether he is comfortable employing 76 paramedics to meet the emergency service needs of Lincoln’s nearly 300,000 residents.

“I mean, I have not lost sleep over this,” he said. “But would it be nice to have more? It’s always nice to have more, right?”

The set of circumstances that has led Lincoln Fire and Rescue to the position it occupies now — not exactly facing a paramedic shortage, but uncomfortable with application trends and a growing call volume — is nuanced.

Most first responders working for the city’s fire service are certified only as EMTs, a classification that takes about a year less of schooling than it does to become a nationally certified paramedic.

EMTs are allowed to provide basic life-saving measures to patients and are permitted to administer a few drugs, while certified paramedics can administer a wide range of medication and can perform certain procedures, such as tracheotomies.

All of the agency’s front-line responders work 24-hour shifts, with three shifts of employees working on a three-day rotation.

The fire department typically staffs each of its seven ambulances with one paramedic per day — but paramedics don’t work two shifts in a row on a medic unit, said Capt. Nancy Crist, the department’s public information officer. After working a shift on an ambulance unit, paramedics work their next shift — after 24 hours off — on a truck or fire engine, she said.

It’s a system designed to stave off the burnout that comes with working on a medic unit. But it’s a system the department has considered stepping away from as fewer paramedics apply to fill those shifts.

“When I first became a paramedic, the job of a paramedic was: You’re on an ambulance. Every day,” Engler said. “I mean, that’s what we did.”

Over time, the role of paramedics changed in Lincoln, with certified paramedics taking roles on fire engines, truck companies, in hospital ERs and at plasma centers.

“Now, we’ve got paramedics doing way more than they’ve ever done and having more opportunity, which is great, but you’ve created what I would call an artificial shortage of paramedics,” Engler said.

The complications for the department’s paramedic ranks don’t stop there.

Well over 76 of the department’s approximately 315 uniformed personnel have been certified as paramedics at some point in their career. But the department requires paramedics to work 14 ambulance shifts per year to keep their certification — a burdensome stipulation that leads many of the paramedics to allow their certifications to lapse after being promoted to fire captains, said Adam Schrunk, the president of the Lincoln Firefighters Association.

“These are people with crews and their own rig and their own stations, and now they’ve got to go out 14 times a year, minimum, and ride on the medic units to … ‘keep up their skills,’” Schrunk said, critiquing the department-mandated requirement.

“They’re still going to medical calls every day on the fire engines,” Schrunk said. “Eighty percent of our calls are medical calls anyway.”

Still, the union, Schrunk said, is split on its view of the 14-shift requirement.

Some paramedics who spend half their shifts working on the department’s medic units think it’s unfair that other paramedics could keep their certification with such few shifts. Others, though, welcome all the help they can get in balancing a workload that “ruins” paramedics, Schrunk said.

The workload issue and what Schrunk described as constant scrutiny on paramedics from department brass have combined to make the job unattractive to employees, who sacrifice an increased pay rate when they let their paramedic certification lapse.

Some have even left Lincoln altogether, said Schrunk, who said that six department employees had left for jobs in Omaha over the last year alone.

“Our medics are constantly scrutinized for what they’re doing,” he said. “And they may not get disciplined for things, but they’re under scrutiny all the time. ‘Why did you put this in this report? Why did you do this?’

“It provides you with really good paramedics that way, right? When you’re constantly on somebody about every little detail, we have a very detail-oriented, very impressive medic group.

“But it’s at what cost?”

The union’s workload and culture concerns are simmering less than two months away from its next bargaining period with the city, which will begin March 1 and come only months after the Lincoln Police Union won sizable raises for its ranks as the police department grapples with an extreme staffing shortfall.

For his part, Engler sympathized with complaints about the department’s workload and touted the agency’s status as one of the leading life-saving emergency service providers in the country, saving cardiac arrest patients at a rate that more than doubles the national average.

Lincoln Fire and Rescue was called for service 32,440 times in 2022 — an increase of 2,500 calls over 2021 and an increase of more than 10,000 calls compared to 2013, when Lincoln had about 30,000 fewer residents, according to department data and a decade’s worth of annual reports.

The agency has grown, too, adding at least 55 responders to its ranks since 2017 after gaining only eight in the previous 25 years, but the department only operates one more medic unit than it did nine years ago.

The city has approved funding for an additional medic unit, but the department doesn’t have enough paramedics to staff it yet, said Schrunk, who believes a department serving a city the size of Lincoln should be operating 10 ambulances.

Engler said he plans to activate its eighth ambulance unit this year as the department navigates its latest round of hiring — a task that has been complicated by a shrinking pool of qualified applicants.

As recently as 2017, Lincoln Fire and Rescue received 128 applications for paramedic positions, 105 of which came from qualified candidates, according to city applicant data. Of those 105, 56 passed the department’s written test. The agency hired 10.

In 2022, the department received 33 such applications, 28 of which came from qualified candidates. All but five passed the written exam. Three were hired.

Though Schrunk suggested that hiring would resolve the department’s paramedic problems, vacancies haven’t been the issue for the department, Engler said. As of Friday, the department listed only four vacancies — a figure that includes paramedics, EMTs and nonuniformed personnel.

“The so-called shortage truly doesn’t exist,” Engler said. “Would I like to have more paramedics? Absolutely. I would love to have more paramedics. So what are we doing? We’re looking at trying to train people from within.

“But we have a staffing clause in our union contract which — so if I send a person to paramedic school, guess what? It creates a vacancy, which creates overtime every day. And so, the problem isn’t totally easily solved.”

The fire chief is also eyeing another potential solution: a complete change in how the department allocates its paramedics.

Instead of sending a certified paramedic to every medical call, Engler has pondered reserving paramedics for higher-level calls and dispatching EMT crews to take care of non-life-threatening requests for service in an effort to combat burnout.

“We’ve got this high call volume,” Engler said. “And we’re running, running, running, running. And most of the calls are not paramedic-level calls. And so it does create, for our paramedics, it creates a little bit of, ‘Why am I doing this?’”

And then there’s the “doomsday scenario” Engler has considered, too.

If the department’s paramedic staffing levels dip too low, Engler said, the agency could staff each ambulance unit with two paramedics instead of one — but no longer schedule paramedics on truck or engine companies, requiring them to work on an ambulance for each of their shifts.

Under such a scenario, the department could staff its seven ambulances with 42 paramedics, not accounting for vacation days or other absences. But its not a plan the union is likely to support.

And it’s not a plan Engler hopes to turn to, either.

“I don’t think there’s one easy answer to it,” he said.

The issue is likely to come to a head this spring, when the department and union are set to begin bargaining for a new labor contact to replace the one that expires this fall.

For now, both parties are short on solutions to what, they agree, seems like a budding problem.

“None of us know a lot of the answers,” Schrunk said.

Jan. 23, 2023 Officials determined the restraints Chicago Paramedic Dakota Ibrahim placed on the man contributed to his death.

By Jake Sheridan, Jeremy Gorner Source Chicago Tribune (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The Chicago Fire Department has fired a paramedic after an internal affairs investigation into the death of a Buena Park man determined the first responder did not attend to the patient and then allegedly submitted a false report after the patient’s death.

Leonardo Guerrero, 44, was pronounced dead at Thorek Memorial Hospital in Uptown on Aug. 31, after he stopped breathing while strapped to a stretcher in an ambulance. Restraints applied by paramedics to Guerrero contributed to his cardiac arrest death, which was also affected by high blood pressure and primarily caused by cocaine and alcohol use, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. The office ruled the death a homicide.

Following the internal affairs investigation into his death, the Fire Department on Nov. 20 fired Dakota Ibrahim, the paramedic in charge of Guerrero’s care. His fellow responding paramedic, Joseph Schultz, has been suspended from the Fire Department.

Both paramedics’ state licenses were also suspended by the Illinois Department of Public Health, six months for Ibrahim and three months for Schultz. They will be able to work as paramedics in Illinois after completing their suspensions.

Guerrero’s loved ones told the Tribune on Thursday night that they were surprised to learn the circumstances of his death after having “no idea” what had happened, and they called for harsher punishments beyond the suspensions given to the involved paramedics.

“You can’t believe it happened, and then you go into anger, and then you go into being hurt because you will never see your brother again,” his sister Sylvia Guerrero Tanguma said.

Ibrahim’s attorney, Patrick Walsh, disputed parts of the Fire Department’s characterization of what happened and said the 30-year-old paramedic should be allowed to work again.

“There was nothing that Dakota did or did not do that caused Mr. Guerrero’s death,” Walsh said.

The news of the firing, uncovered by a series of Tribune information requests, comes days after two Sangamon County paramedics were charged with first-degree murder in the death of a patient. That patient, 35-year-old Earl Moore of Springfield, died of asphyxia after being strapped face down to a stretcher, the autopsy report said. Under Illinois law, a first-degree murder charge can be filed when a defendant “knows that such acts create a strong probability of death or great bodily harm.”

In Guerrero’s case, no criminal charges have been filed against either of the paramedics who transported him, and police were unable to share any details because it is an open death investigation. Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office said it did not have any information to share regarding his death.

According to police and Fire Department records, police called for paramedics on Aug. 31 after discovering Guerrero lying naked in a parking lot near his home in the Buena Park neighborhood. He appeared to be on drugs and hallucinating, officers wrote in a police report. Guerrero tested positive for cocaine and alcohol during his autopsy.

Guerrero told police he was dying and that he didn’t want to die, and he “could be clearly seen as suffering from some form of respiratory crisis,” according to the Fire Department’s internal affairs report.

The paramedics’ missteps started when they got out of their ambulance with no equipment, the report says. The breakdown in protocol continued from there, according to the findings.

Police body camera footage reviewed by investigators shows Ibrahim and Schultz conducted no preliminary assessment of Guerrero upon arriving, despite his apparent medical crisis, the report said. The paramedics then asked Guerrero, who was nude, to walk 50 feet to the ambulance, and he got up and followed the command.

After getting in the ambulance, Guerrero was reluctant to lie down and tried to leave, the report says. The paramedics then secured him to a stretcher, and police handcuffed him to it.

As Schultz drove the ambulance to nearby Thorek Memorial Hospital, Ibrahim sat by Guerrero’s head, with a police officer also sitting in view of Guerrero. The body camera footage shows Guerrero “was lapsing in and out of consciousness” and gasping for air during the three-minute ride.

As Guerrero’s breathing slowed, Ibrahim chatted with the police officer and talked about his day, according to the report.

“Ibrahim did not assess or care for the patient at all,” the report said.

Schultz noticed that the previously agitated patient did not appear to be moving and seemed calm when the ambulance arrived at the hospital’s emergency room bay, he told investigators. Schultz said he asked Ibrahim if the man was still alive. Ibrahim replied that he was, Schultz told investigators.

Ibrahim then told Schultz to alert emergency room personnel that they had arrived, according to the report. As Schultz waited to speak with a nurse on the phone in the hospital, Ibrahim took around five minutes to fill in paperwork, still making no attempt to assess or communicate with Guerrero, according to the report.

“The patient was simply left unmonitored, unassessed and untreated,” the report said.

When a police officer pointed out that Guerrero appeared to no longer be breathing, Ibrahim checked his pulse for the first time and loosened the restraints, the report said. They were just feet away from the emergency room. Body camera footage shows Ibrahim telling police to “shut the door” of the ambulance, the report said.

Ibrahim performed CPR in the ambulance before Guerrero was brought into the emergency room, where he was pronounced dead.

The medical examiner’s office determined that cocaine and ethanol (or alcohol) toxicity, high blood pressure and “stress complicating restraint” caused Guerrero’s death. The office determined the death was a homicide, noting it occurred partly because of “a volitional, potentially harmful act of another,” but adding that the ruling does not mean anyone intended to cause fatal injury.

The restraint and the use of drugs and alcohol “are intertwined,” the autopsy says. “It is not possible to separate out the extent that each played in his death, nor to say with certainty if his death would have occurred with only one or the other.”

Body camera footage shows Ibrahim telling emergency room personnel Guerrero “just coded right as we pulled in” as he was moved inside the hospital, the report says. The claim was “clearly a false statement,” it adds.

Fire Department protocol requires paramedics to notify hospitals before ambulances arrive. Ibrahim wrote in a patient care report he had unsuccessfully called the hospital three times. But body camera footage shows no evidence of Ibrahim calling the hospital and captures him telling Schultz he had not called, the report said.

Ibrahim had to say in the report that he called the hospital three times because the Fire Department’s software did not have an option for “did not call,” Walsh, his attorney, said. Fire Department spokesperson Larry Langford confirmed the department’s software previously did not allow paramedics to say in their reports that they hadn’t called the hospital. He said the software has since been changed.

In Ibrahim’s patient report, he indicated that he had been unable to test Guerrero’s vital signs “due to safety concerns for crew and officers,” but said he was able to complete a basic impaired consciousness examination that involves visual and physical assessment. The investigation notes he never tried to physically assess Guerrero before the man stopped breathing.

The paramedic described Guerrero as “combative” in the patient report, a word officers also used in police reports, and Ibrahim told investigators Guerrero’s demeanor prevented immediate definitive care. Ibrahim’s patient report also describes Guerrero as not injured, despite the body camera footage showing him bleeding from abrasions on both knees.

“Ibrahim’s notes were at best inaccurate and at worst wholly falsified,” the internal affairs report says. Schultz also signed the patient report.

While body camera footage shows an agitated Guerrero not following an initial command to lie down in the ambulance, it also shows that “at no time did (he) become combative,” according to the internal affairs report.

Ibrahim told investigators he had visually assessed Guerrero and determined it was best to transport him quickly to the emergency room instead of providing immediate care. He also said he closed the ambulance doors upon realizing Guerrero wasn’t breathing “because he wanted to protect the patient’s privacy,” the report said.

Ibrahim received a six-month suspension from the Illinois Department of Public Health, meaning he will be licensed to work as a paramedic in Illinois in late April. Schultz’s state paramedic license was suspended for three months, an IDPH spokesperson said.

The suspensions are too short, Guerrero’s family said.

“These people should never be allowed to work in a field like that again,” sister Veronica Guerrero said. Paramedic training should be reformed, his family said.

Guerrero’s family has tried to obtain more information about his death, even flying to Chicago from Texas the day after he died, but had not been made aware that the Fire Department completed its investigation until speaking with the Tribune.

Guerrero’s mother and four of his five sisters, all of whom live in Texas, and his best friend and roommate, Phillip Liming, said they were not aware of the details surrounding his death. The family hired a lawyer and is considering legal action.

His loved ones remember Guerrero as a peacemaking “teddy bear.” The sometimes shy, big bartender had an infectious laugh, played with his nieces and nephews like a “big child,” and was quick to tell others he loved them, they said.

The Fire Department’s description of the medical care Guerrero received before dying made them feel angry and hurt, they said. The loved ones believe paramedics wrote Guerrero off when they first saw him as a naked, intoxicated Hispanic man.

“They just saw a homeless person in their eyes. They saw no value,” Guerrero Tanguma said.

Their brother had a strong fear of doctors, and 911 calls show he had been shouting out for help before police arrived, Guerrero’s sisters said. Guerrero was not a “combative” person, they reiterated, and it must have been scary and humiliating for him to be suffering a medical emergency and be asked to walk naked to the ambulance, they added.

“It hurts us to know he suffered,” Guerrero Tanguma said.

Walsh said Guerrero’s death should not cause the end of Ibrahim’s paramedic career. Ibrahim “is an exceptional young man who chose a life of service to the people of Chicago” and “could be a valuable resource to any community he serves,” Walsh said.

Walsh said Ibrahim was in the best position to see Guerrero’s condition while the man was being transported and he did not see any signs that he had coded before the ambulance arrived at the hospital. Ibrahim also never intended to submit false reports, he added.

Ibrahim made $79,217 while working for the CFD in 2020 after he was hired in early March of that year, according to the Illinois Answers Project.

Despite choosing to fire Ibrahim and suspend Schultz, fire officials did not immediately disclose for how long they suspended Schultz. Through a Fire Department spokesperson, Schultz declined to comment. The department cited “the less egregious nature of his actions” and his status as a newly hired candidate fire paramedic as reasons for the lighter discipline given to him.

“The core mission of the Chicago Fire Department is to save lives and protect property. The actions of these paramedics, in totality, did not adhere to our policies and procedures to do all we can to provide the best medical care on the scene and en route to the appropriate medical emergency department,” Langford said.

Coming to the paramedics’ defense, the Local 2 Chicago Firefighters Union described Guerrero’s death as a tragedy and the body camera footage as “heart-rending,” but added that it does not tell the full story.

Ibrahim and Schultz were on their 19th run of their shift, which came as the crew had been working 24-hours-on, 24-hours-off for months, the union said. Local 2 plans to arbitrate for Ibrahim to regain his job “because of the strain which he was under and other extenuating circumstances” and called on the city to provide citizens with “enough ambulances and first responders.”

Tribune reporter Rosemary Sobol contributed.