By John Hultgren
Kentucky EMS Connection
FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin ceremoniously signed Senate Bill 43, also known as the John Mackey Memorial Act, Thursday in the Kentucky Capitol in front of the Mackey family, Mackey’s EMS family at Jessamine County EMS, and representatives from the Kentucky Ambulance Providers Association and the Kentucky Board of EMS, extending some line-of-duty death benefits to many Kentucky EMS personnel next month.
“This was one of the easiest bills to sign,” Governor Bevin said.
“This has taken almost a decade to have people realize that EMS is inherently dangerous at times as other emergency responders,” Thomas Adams, president of the Kentucky Ambulance Providers Association, said.
The bill originally would have amended KRS 61.315 to make the survivors of emergency medical services providers who are killed in the line of duty on or after July 1, 2014, eligible for the state lump-sum death benefit. However, the bill was amended on February 24 in the Senate to define “emergency medical services provider” as “emergency medical services personnel” and to clarify that it applies to individuals employed directly by, or volunteering directly for, a local government or certain ambulance and fire districts for the purposes of providing emergency medical services. The amendment also changed the retroactive application date to deaths occurring on or after November 1, 2015.
The amended bill passed the Kentucky Senate and the Kentucky House unanimously and was signed by Gov. Bevin on April 1.
Kentucky’s state constitution specifies that new laws, unless they contain an emergency clause or specify their own effective date, take effect 90 days after the adjournment of the legislature. Since the 2016 Kentucky Legislative Session adjourned on April 15 and the bill does not contain an effective date, then Senate Bill 43 should become law on July 14.
Jessamine County EMS Paramedic John Mackey, 40, was struck by a car November 5, 2015, while surveying damage after his ambulance clipped mirrors with another vehicle. He succumbed to those injuries on November 9, 2015. Paramedic Mackey is survived by his wife, Janine (who is also a paramedic in Anderson County), three children, and his parents.
The full text of the bill can be read here.