ESTERO, Fla. — A veteran Fla. paramedic has resigned over what he claims to be continuous lying by administration in a controversial air medic case.
Lee County paramedic Jason Ausman told commissioners he left his job on Monday because he “could no longer stand by while his superiors conveyed such lies to the public,” according to the Sun Times.
Estero Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Mark Wahlig also said his department was offended by the county’s “disgraceful” response last week to a call for a helicopter, needed to transport an injured teenager from a car accident.
Commissioner Brian Bigelow requested an investigation of County Manager Karen Hawes’s conduct after she reinstated Medstar pilots who were terminated in August, “under the guise of suspending the county’s emergency flight program to obtain voluntary accreditation that no other government in the state possesses.”
The privately owned helicopter Lee County got to replace the taxpayer-funded service was not working, and the closest helicopter was more than 25 minutes away.
County commissioners said the threat to public safety without a county air medic team was small as the new 30-minute allowance for an ambulance to get to a hospital was recently instated, the Sun Times reported.
Officials claim Collier County officials told them their helicopter would be the last resort so they didn’t call the second-closest option. But Collier County’s helicopter was ready, and dispatchers didn’t contact them until 35 minutes after the accident, according to Collier EMS Chief Walter Kopka.