| Updated: 3/28/2010 7:15 pm |
Published: 3/27/2010 9:57 pm |
Two senior paramedics with Metropolitan EMS are on paid leave. Two senior paramedics with Metropolitan EMS are on paid leave. The medics thought a patient died, but she was very much alive. The woman died Sunday.
The MEMS director is not faulting his employees just yet. He says all of his paramedics are highly trained to detect a patient’s vital signs and make important medical decisions on the spot. So what happened Friday when two paramedics responded to an emergency and determined the patient was dead when she was actually alive?
"It's a lovely quiet neighborly neighborhood,” says Janet Hoover describing her community.
It's why people in her west Little Rock subdivision were shocked to see all of the commotion Friday morning.
"When I came out I saw a fire truck, an ambulance, and a police car."
Her only thought was, "What's going on?"
Authorities say they responded to a home on Hunters Cove Drive after getting a call that 52 year old Pamela Harper was lying unresponsive in the yard.
"We had a unit respond initially and assess the patient, leave, another unit was called in,” says MEMS Executive Director Jon Swanson.
Both paramedics said the woman was dead, but when a detective and a deputy coroner arrived, they found otherwise. That's when another paramedic showed up to get the woman to a hospital.
"At this point you're not sure if protocol was followed or not?” we asked Swanson.
“That's the point of the investigation is to make sure we understand all the facts,” he replied.
Swanson says he has faith in all of his medics, but wants to get to the bottom of the issue.
"They obviously encountered something extremely unusual, something that we had not encountered before so the whole point of the investigation is to find out what did happen," he said.
Neighbors wonder how the situation even got to that point.
"It is surprising that she laid there that long,” Hoover said.
Saturday morning, Harper was still listed in critical condition at Baptist Hospital. Saturday night, hospital officials confirmed she was still there.
Swanson says he's been director for 12 years and hasn't seen anything like this before. He adds the medics in question are “experienced and highly skilled.” They're on paid leave during the internal investigation. MEMS will determine what if any corrective action to take during the suspension of the medics.
