City plans to fire veteran paramedic over dead defib battery

[MMiz]

City plans to fire veteran paramedic

CLEARWATER - City officials said Monday they plan to fire a veteran paramedic for falsifying records about a man he couldn't revive with a defibrillator because its batteries were dead.

Dwayne "Chris" Vaughan, 47, whose paramedic's license has already been revoked, requested a pretermination hearing for this afternoon, a day before his firing is to take effect.

City officials have said an internal investigation revealed that Vaughan lied about the death of Thomas C. Tipton, 34, of Tampa, who went limp on April 5 after being Tasered, handcuffed and restrained face-down by three Clearwater police officers.

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[MariaCatEMT]

While I do fully realize that shocking the patient may not have helped.....and I wonder at the situation (patient handcuffed by 3 police officers face-down.......what was going on), dead batteries are unacceptable. No offense, but can we say.....pre-shift check and/or post call equipment check? How sad. Lying on record too......unacceptable.

 

[Jon]

Maria, I think you hit the nail on the head.

If the sole issue was a dead battery, and he called for an assist unit / supervisor to come with spare batteries, then he probably would still have his cert and his job.

Since he LIED on a legal document and *apparently* did not get a working defib to the patient, he possibly exaserbated the situation and was indirectly responsible for the death of the patient.

 

[FFEMT1764]

Three words for this : Criminally Negligent Homicide.

 

[MMiz]

My title was misleading. If the battery was dead, and so was the backup, I believe the medic would probably still have his job. I think the real issue here was his dishonesty and attempted coverup.

 

[Guardian]

Duty to act-yes
Breach of duty-yes (letting the batteries run out)
Causation-yes
Damages-yes

Negligent-yes
SOL-yes

Only defense would have been documentation explaining that battery problems were unexpected and not his fault.

Sounds like pretty good chance pt could have been saved with defib.