Detroit paramedic: I'm being punished for giving a cold man a blanket

Detroit paramedic: I'm being punished for giving a cold man a blanket

By Charlie LeDuff

FOX 2 News Reporter

DETROIT -- A Detroit paramedic says he is in trouble for breaking the rules. His offense? Giving a cold man a blanket.

Top
brass tell us employees must have permission to hand out "department
property", but that blanket was one of many donated to the department
to help people in need.

Ladies and gentlemen, this might be the
most ridiculous and bone-headed Detroit ambulance story yet. It started
two weeks ago when a house caught on fire. An old cripple man lived
inside. They brought him outside. He was in his underwear. It was
cold. He was shivering. You give him a blanket, right? Right. Then
guess what happened?

"I'm being punished for giving a man a blanket," said paramedic Jeff Gaglio.

He called in sick Wednesday, sick to his stomach after being punished for giving away city-owned property.

"Yesterday I got notified that I'll be brought up on EMS departmental charges," Gaglio said.

What's that mean?

"I'm
being punished. I'm being punished for giving a man a blanket,
something that would seem like a common, every day courtesy. Something
that any man or woman would do in the City of Detroit, give a freezing
man a blanket. I'm being punished for it."

Who's punishing him?

"The chief of EMS Jerald James."

You
know what makes this story even more outrageous? The city didn't even
pay for the blankets. Matt Cahillane, president of Firefighter Support
Services, donated them.

"Anybody who's been displaced by a fire, that's what they're for," he said.

Does he mind people having to keep the blankets?

"I think that's what they're for."

I
tried calling Chief James and left a message saying, "It's LeDuff. I'm
downstairs. I'd like to know why you're suspending paramedics for
putting blankets on old cripple people. Can you give me a call, come
down here and talk?"

So we waited and waited and waited some more and finally, a couple hours later, we got our explanation.

"We
can't have an employee who feels that they have a right to give away
state property, be it donated, be it a blanket, be it a tire off a
vehicle, without getting prior approval from somebody or notifying the
proper authority. This is what he did," James said by phone.

That's
right, paramedic, you'll need to get permission to give that feeble,
half-naked old man a donated blanket because they're needed in the paint
room for drop clothes.

"These are the important issues. Donated
blankets are the important issue, not the broken-down ambulances, not
the bad response time, not the people dying that can't get an ambulance,
not the closing of EMS units in the city, blankets," said Gaglio.

So
let's review. We're going to let old cripple guys shiver to death.
We're going to take much needed paramedics off the street. I think what
the fire department should do is point those hoses right at
headquarters and clean the whole joint out.


Source:-

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/19788029/detroit-paramedic-im-being-punished-for-giving-cold-man-a-blanket