Fire Law Blog Fire Service and Public Safety Legal Issues Blog by Curt Varone
Louisville Metro EMS has been in the news lately with a number of disciplinary issues. Most of the cases have been drug related, leading the Department to declare a “zero tolerance” for illegal drug use. You may recall the case of Tammy Renee Brewer, who was charged with murder in 2008 following a fatal ambulance accident where she was driving an ambulance while impaired on methadone. She subsequently pled guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
The Department and the local Teamsters union that represents the EMS employees reached an agreement on August 11, 2011 which will require that every employee to undergo drug testing in the coming weeks. As per the agreement the employees will not know when they are to be tested and could be subjected to multiple drug tests over the next few months.
Some of the recent charges faced by the EMS employees are :
- In July Paramedics Ben Neal, Joseph Bratcher, and Samuel Fife, and EMT Robert Gant were suspended while police investigated allegations that they were involved in the distribution and illegal use of controlled substances.
- Also in July EMT David Fife was suspended from the department while he was the subject of a criminal investigation.
- Louisville Metro EMS Major Roger Parvin, who was responsible for managing expiration dates of controlled substances, was terminated from the department after he took 180 vials of controlled substances that had reached their expiration dates to his home rather than destroying them.
- Louisville Metro EMS – EMT and Iraq war veteran Alex Brown was arrested for DUI and possession of drugs off duty after being involved in an non-injury accident. He was suspended from the department.
Louisville Metro has approximately 250 employees. More on the story.
