By Jacob H. Fries
St. Petersburg Times (Florida)
Copyright 2006 Times Publishing Company
CLEARWATER, Fla. — City officials said Monday they plan to fire a veteran paramedic for falsifying records about a man he couldn’t revive with a defibrillator because its batteries were dead.
Dwayne “Chris” Vaughan, 47, whose paramedic’s license has already been revoked, requested a pretermination hearing for this afternoon, a day before his firing is to take effect.
City officials have said an internal investigation revealed that Vaughan lied about the death of Thomas C. Tipton, 34, of Tampa, who went limp on April 5 after being Tasered, handcuffed and restrained face-down by three Clearwater police officers.
“Dishonesty and deception are unacceptable,” fire Chief Jamie Geer said, dismissing a suggestion that Vaughan’s length of service warranted leniency. “A second chance at what? Violating trust. I don’t think so.”
Vaughan, who had no previous disciplinary problems in his 23-year career, could not be reached for comment on Monday.
John Lee, president of the fire union, did not return repeated calls to his pager.
Vaughan and a second paramedic had tried to resuscitate Tipton when he became unconscious. However, they could not use a portable defibrillator because they had left the device turned on, draining its batteries, officials have said. Tipton, a staffing firm manager, was pronounced dead a short time later.
It was unknown whether a defibrillator shock at the time Tipton went limp could have saved his life, officials say.
Medical examiners determined Tipton died from asphyxiation, which resulted from his being restrained face-down on a patio as officers compressed his chest. Alcohol in his system might have hastened the asphyxia, Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe concluded last month while ruling the police had acted properly.
After the incident, Vaughan, as is standard procedure, produced several documents related to Tipton’s care. He printed an internal log generated by the defibrillator itself, but later admitted he removed sections of it, officials said.
He also wrote in a patient care report that Tipton had a normal heart rhythm, something he couldn’t have measured without a working defibrillator.
During a formal interview, Vaughan told officials he had written the report “under stressful conditions” and was unsure whether he had proofread it.
According to McCabe and Clearwater police, this is what happened on the day Tipton died:
At 11:30 p.m., after several hours of drinking and drug use, Tipton walked into the courtyard of the Tropic Isle Motel on north Clearwater Beach. He knocked over several patio chairs and broke jalousie windows, prompting the motel manager and a guest to call 911.
When officers tried to subdue him, Tipton kicked and punched at them while shouting expletives. Officers shocked him with a Taser twice and got his hands in cuffs with his arms behind him.
They eventually were able to take down Tipton, who weighed 270 pounds. They held him face-down, but Tipton continued to resist for a short time before going limp.
Vaughan and his partner, Jeffrey Kyle Wallace, 27, had already been called to the scene. They tried to resuscitate him with a defibrillator. The battery was dead. So was the backup.
Wallace, who wasn’t involved in the writing of the reports in the Tipton case, faces no disciplinary action.