By R. G. Dunlop
The Courier-Journal
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A Louisville Metro ambulance driver involved in an accident that killed a passenger last April has committed two traffic offenses and pleaded guilty to passing bad checks since being hired by Louisville Metro government in June 2006.
Tammy Renee Brewer also violated state law when she failed to notify the state Board of Emergency Medical Services of her January 2007 misdemeanor conviction for theft by deception in connection with the insufficient-funds checks, according to Charles O’Neal, the board’s executive director.
Had Brewer told the board of her conviction, it would have triggered a review of her record, O’Neal said. That, in turn, might have resulted in closer scrutiny of Brewer, O’Neal said, including more frequent background checks and a timely awareness of Brewer’s conviction last January for driving a personal vehicle 23 miles over the speed limit in a school zone.
Although the individual offenses might not have warranted board action against Brewer’s certification, “it would certainly be something to set off alarm bells, to be watching that individual,” O’Neal said.
Brewer, 35, also pleaded guilty in January 2007 to operating a motor vehicle without insurance. She recently returned to work at an EMS desk job after taking personal leave following the April 3 accident that killed Vicki Whobrey, metro government spokeswoman Kerri Richardson said.
EMS officials declined to be interviewed, but Richardson said Brewer was not required to report the traffic or misdemeanor offenses to local EMS officials. Citing ongoing investigations by the city and by Shively police, Richardson declined to say what the city might have done had it known about Brewer’s legal problems.
Behavior questioned
Metro EMS records also raise questions about Brewer’s actions and behavior both before and during the accident.
The records indicate that before coming to work at 10 p.m. April 2, about 21/2 hours before the accident occurred, Brewer had a headache and took two pills that she later told a supervisor she “did not think” were narcotics. According to city policy, EMS workers must notify their superiors if they have any physical impairment that would prevent them from safely operating an ambulance, including anything that would prevent them from being alert.
During the shift, her EMS partner, paramedic Gregory Gavin, sent a text message to a co-worker saying, “You should see her (Brewer), she is loopy,” and requesting that a supervisor be contacted, the records show.
The co-worker, EMT Robert Tousignant, said he replied: “OK to drive?” Gavin’s response, according to Tousignant: “Her, no.”
Gavin characterized her behavior as “loopy.” And he said Brewer did not know what street the ambulance was on after the wreck.
Brewer refused to talk in detail with a reporter or to answer questions about the state board’s assertion that she failed to report her bad-check conviction.
“I understand you’re trying to do your job, but I really don’t think that’s any of your business,” she said.
On April 18, a Jefferson County grand jury issued a subpoena to Metro EMS for various records related to the crash. A spokesman for the Jefferson commonwealth’s attorney’s office wouldn’t comment.
Driving erratically
Brewer and Gavin were transporting the 54-year-old Whobrey to Sts. Mary & Elizabeth Hospital at 1850 Bluegrass Ave. in southwest Louisville about 12:30 a.m. April 3. Whobrey required medical care because she had had a prolonged nosebleed earlier that night.
Brewer, who was driving the ambulance, told investigators that she swerved to avoid a pedestrian who darted into her path on Rockford Lane and lost control of the vehicle.
The ambulance struck and severed a telephone pole, careened through a drainage ditch, crossed Van Hoose Road, entered another drainage ditch, hit an earthen embankment, continued up the embankment and struck a chain-link fence before coming to rest in a yard, according to a Shively police report.
Whobrey was transported by another ambulance to University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead of blunt-force trauma.
Tammy Pablo of Louisville, who was driving behind the ambulance down Rockford Lane, said in an interview that the vehicle had been traveling erratically, swerving “all over the place” for at least a half-mile before the collision. Pablo also said she saw no pedestrian in the roadway.
“It’s not possible that someone ran out that I didn’t see,” said Pablo, adding that she has been interviewed by Shively police and attorneys representing Whobrey’s daughter, but not by any Louisville Metro officials or agency.
According to a memo written by EMS Capt. Mike Crenshaw, Brewer told him after the accident that she took two pills, obtained from “a family friend,” for a headache before she came to work that night.
Crenshaw said Brewer told him that she did not think the pills were narcotics “because they did not give her a ‘buzz’ like narcotics normally do to her.”
Crenshaw also said another EMS employee told him just before the accident that Brewer had been having problems with her teeth and was taking narcotics for pain. Crenshaw was attempting to arrange to have Brewer undergo a drug screen when the wreck occurred.
The Jefferson County attorney’s office has received the results of toxicology tests performed on Brewer following the accident, but declined last week to release them.
Gavin, Brewer’s partner, wrote following the accident that Brewer seemed “very tired” during the shift, and had been angry with a colleague earlier in the evening. Just before the crash, Gavin had requested that a supervisor meet the ambulance at the hospital to check on Brewer.
In the aftermath, Gavin said, “I realized that Tammy should have called in sick.”
Unaware of violations
Neither city officials nor the state board, which certified Brewer as an EMT in 2006, were aware of her recent traffic and criminal history, because they had not checked her background for more than two years.
City officials were required by state regulation only to review Brewer’s driving and criminal records before hiring her. The board routinely conducts reviews before certification, and then during recertification two years later, O’Neal said.
Its last evaluation of Brewer’s background was in April 2006, before she was approved as an EMT.
Following her guilty plea on April 7 to the speeding charge, Brewer was ordered to attend traffic school and to pay $129 in costs. A warrant was issued for her arrest when she failed to appear in court May 12. The warrant currently is outstanding, court records show.
Brewer also had been convicted of reckless driving in November 2005, seven months before she was certified by the state and hired by the city, both of which knew of the offense but did not consider it serious enough to disqualify her.