EMT Suspended, Resigns for Driving 4-Year-Old to Hospital
A volunteer EMT resigned after being suspended for breaking the rules and driving a 4-year-old having seizures to the hospital in an ambulance. His resignation has caused an outcry in the community, and many have asked for him to be reinstated as soon as possible.
Stephen Sawyer, 20, was working at the Ellenville First Aid and Rescue Squad headquarters in New York when a call came in about a 4-year-old having seizures. A paramedic arrived at the boy's home and requested an ambulance for transfer to a hospital. Sawyer was reportedly alone at headquarters and tried desperately to find another company to take the young boy to the hospital, since he falls one year short of the department's requirement that ambulance drivers be 21.
Sawyer tried four times to find an ambulance before finally making the decision to drive his own ambulance to retrieve the boy and get him to the Ellenville Regional Hospital.
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"I wouldn't have been able to sleep at night or go to school knowing there's a 4-year-old suffering," Sawyer told the Times Herald-Record.
Later that evening, he received a phone call from the squad captain and after appearing in front of the board of directors, was suspended for 60 days and has his titles as advisor from the Youth Squad that he helped restart, and the title he earned on the communications committee revoked. Sawyer then made the decision to resign and walked out.
While many have called for Sawyer to be fully reinstated, and have applauded his efforts to save a boy's life, John Gavaris said that the suspension stood. It was a "culmination of different incidents" in which Sawyer broke policies during that fateful night. Gavaris told the Herald-Record that he could not elaborate any further on the incident.
Yet Gavaris told the Daily Freeman that Sawyer "delayed transport on a patient" because there was another EMT and driver who could have responded to the call for the 4-year-old patient. However, Sawyer decided to send them on another call for an older gentleman who had fallen and was bleeding.
"Had this been the first incident, he would have been told not to do it again," Gavaris said. But Sawyer had a record "of violating our policies and not following our rules. I believe all agreed a suspension was warranted."
