Oklahoma Trooper Interferes With Patient Care and Assaults EMT

I was astounded to catch a report of this story on Fox News this evening. Let me set this up for you. The ambulance has a sick patient in the back that they are transporting without lights and without sirens to a local hospital.

The trooper in the video is attempting to respond to a separate emergency. The trooper approaches the ambulance at a high rate of speed with only his warning lights on and rides the bumper of the ambulance. This is equivalent to being on the bumper of a semi. The ambulance is box shaped and that is why every fire truck and ambulance says stay back 100 feet, because we can't see what's going on directly behind us.

The driver of the ambulance does not see or hear the trooper behind him, which apparently works to enrage this trooper. When the driver finally realizes the trooper is behind him, he pulls over. As the trooper passes he comments rudely on the radio' "try checking your rear views," or something to that effect, and the driver responds with a gesture of surprise, which the trooper would later claim he thought was an obscene gesture.

The trooper then comes back and stops the ambulance. The paramedic, thinking that there must be some kind of medical emergency accounting for the erratic behavior and driving of the trooper, gets out and attempts to determine what the problem is and help. The paramedic explains that they have a patient and pleads with the trooper to follow them to the hospital and deal with the situation after patient care has been transferred. The trooper then tries to forcefully arrest the paramedic, who resists (as I believe he should have) because the patient is under his care. The trooper places the paramedic in a choke hold, which is against police procedure. The trooper eventually relents and the patient is transported.

Attorney Gary Jones, representing Trooper Martin, stated that Trooper Martin was within his legal authority to stop the ambulance because the ambulance was not running with its lights or sirens on. James also said the paramedic escalated the situation by challenging the trooper. While it is true that the Trooper was within his legal right to stop the ambulance, that does not excuse the fact that he did or the fact that he needlessly assaulted the paramedic and tried to force him to abandon his patient.

The trooper's only defense is that the paramedic made matters worse by getting out of the back of the ambulance. Points to ponder here...the treating paramedic is the one in charge of that ambulance. The responsibility for the patient's care and everything that happens in the course of that call falls squarely on the shoulders of that paramedic. This wasn't like a typical traffic stop where an officer would have to worry about a perp getting out of a vehicle that he was stopping. I maintain, that this course of defense for the officer is absolutely absurd.

This whole matter was instigated by an out of control police officer. I encourage you to read the paramedic's written report of the incident. I hope that this trooper loses his job. The unprofessional conduct of this officer, coupled with his inability to maintain control, his flagrant disregard for the well-being of the patient being cared for, his reckless driving, and his apparent lack of knowledge of the law concerning Paramedic's in the line of duty make him a danger to the community at large and a disgrace to his community and profession.

I'm happy to say, that in general, emergency public agencies enjoy a high level of professional courtesy both on and off duty. Very rarely does a police officer act against an EMT or Firefighter, very much like they provide the same courtesy to fellow police officers. Stories like this paint a mostly false picture of public service cooperation that distorts the professions we chose to serve in.

In the end, the D.A. opted not to prosecute either side of this scuffle. The D.A. would have been in a worse case scenario. While the officer was with in his right to stop the ambulance, he also committed a felony when he assaulted the paramedic and interfered with the medical treatment of his patient.

For more detail on this story visit KOTV's website.