Ambulance attendants accused of molesting patients

[Guest guest]

This hit the news wire this morning. Notice the place the reporter started their

report from.

DALLAS -- They answer the call 24-7,

often risking their own safety to rescue the sick and injured and rush

them to the hospital. But some paramedics have been more predator than

hero.

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. " Everything is

there: Women who are incapacitated, so they're hugely distracted.

Medical cover to put your hands in places where, in any other context,

a predator would be immediately recognized as such. "

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.

Exactly how many of

these EMTs were alleged to have committed their crimes on the job is

unclear. But some of more shocking 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 Chester County, Pa., paramedic sentenced in

July to up to 20 years in prison for engaging in sex and providing

alcohol to teenagers he befriended through their interest in emergency

medical service.

- A Copperas Cove, Texas, paramedic awaiting

trial in January on charges he exposed and touched an 18-year-old

accident victim's breasts while pretending to tend to her injuries.

-

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.

State

health officials in 23 states reported receiving sex-related complaints

involving EMS workers. New York reported the most complaints - 17.

Thirteen of the complaints were substantiated and resulted in workers

losing their certification. Texas reported 13 complaints, Massachusetts

11 and Virginia 10. No breakdown was immediately available showing how

many of those allegations involved sexual misconduct on the job.

Several

EMS officials said the number of complaints is troubling but does not

necessarily point to an industrywide problem. They noted that the

profession employs nearly 900,000 people in the U.S.

" That number

in and of itself doesn't shock me, knowing the number of providers we

have in the country, " said Steve Blessing, state EMS director in

Delaware and president of the National Association of State EMS

Officials. " Is even one case tolerable? I think most state directors

would say no. But we're bound by reality here. "

In Portland,

paramedic Lannie Haszard was sentenced to five years in prison in

August after pleading guilty to five counts of attempted sexual abuse.

Haszard, 62, was charged with inappropriately touching four female

patients while they were being taken by ambulance to hospitals.

Three

of the women have sued Haszard and American Medical Response, his

employer at the time. The lawsuits contend that the company, which

operates ambulances in 40 states, failed to react to previous

complaints about the paramedic's conduct.

Haszard's behavior came

to light last December when a 28-year-old single mother of three,

Royshekka Herring, told police that he touched her genitals while she

was en route to the hospital for emergency treatment of a

gastrointestinal condition.

In a recent taped deposition,

Herring's voice shook with emotion as she described how a nurse tried

to convince her that Haszard was probably performing an abdominal exam.

" I started yelling at her, because I didn't feel safe, " Herring testified.

" Somebody I never expected to touch me touched me. "

A spokesman for American Medical Response had no comment on the case.

Former

Dallas Fire Chief Steve Abraira suggested ambulances carry three

workers. Ambulances usually have two - one in the front, one in the

back.

" If there's a person predisposed to do something wrong,

there's nobody there to witness or discourage that individual from

doing something, " said Abraira, now the fire chief in Palm Bay, Fla.

Twenty-eight states do not automatically bar known sex offenders from working as

EMTs, the AP found.

Although

most insist they would rarely, if ever, allow sex offenders to work

those jobs, the AP found that Texas has knowingly allowed eight,

Louisiana two and Maine, Virginia and North Carolina one each. There is

no indication any of those people were accused of sexual misconduct

after being allowed to work EMS jobs.

Twenty-two states strictly prohibit such offenders from working as EMTs.

" This

is the type of person we don't want in the back of an ambulance with

your mother or daughter, " said March Tucker, an EMS regulator in West

Virginia.

All but one of the eight registered sex offenders certified to work in Texas

victimized children ranging in age from 6 to 16.

" Oh,

my goodness, that's really scary, " said Winfred Dean, who supervises

the sex offender monitoring unit for the County probation

department in Houston. " I thought people like that would more than

likely be eliminated. "

Texas officials said state regulations call for EMS licensing decisions to be

made on a case-by-case basis.

" The

only thing we can do is follow the law, and the law allows this, " said

Maxie Bishop, state EMS director. " We have to take a look at the crime,

how long it's been, the nature of it and what that person has done

since. "

Associated Press writers Farkas in ton W.Va., and Richtmyer

in Albany, N.Y., contributed to this report.