The New York Post
NEW YORK — The Bad Lieutenant is part of a sick clique.
In addition to uploading racist rants and Nazi nonsense, EMS Lt. Timothy Dluhos also posted pictures of patients, including one of a heavy-set woman with a snarky caption Photoshopped over her wheelchair: “Wide Load.”
Publicizing photos of the ill, injured or dead without permission is a violation of city rules and federal privacy laws, but some first responders can’t resist snapping shots of people they’re supposed to be helping.
The photos of grisly corpses, gruesome wounds or humiliating circumstances provide fodder for mocking and gawking.
Some responders splash the images on social-media pages or collect them in “gore books,” a twisted hobby of voyeurism that has been part of the emergency-worker culture for years.
On Wednesday, a Facebook user identifying himself as FDNY EMT Anthony Palmigiano posted a snapshot of a man with a gaping neck wound on a Facebook group page called EMT/Paramedic, calling it a “table saw injury.”
“This guy had a hood on and walking around like nothing was wrong when my partner and I asked him to remove the hood we both weren’t prepared to see this,” the caption reads.
The victim’s face is clearly visible, a likely violation of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which prohibits the unauthorized release of patient information.
When confronted yesterday, Palmigiano claimed “someone hacked into my account and posted this. It’s absurd.”
One former EMS worker described a culture in which some caregivers look for “trophy” shots of especially graphic injuries.
“I saw one where this victim’s head and spinal column were completely removed from his body,” he said.
He said he was shown numerous gore books by co-workers.
“Lots of people have them — patients galore, all ripped apart and mangled,” he said.
“And it’s not just EMS. Fire has them, too, of burn victims, and police take them of people who get killed. It runs across the service. They have them on their phones and there are lot of hardcover books like photo albums.”
A nurse on Staten Island complained about one EMT who got his kicks shocking health workers with images of bodies arranged into poses. One showed a woman’s corpse hanging from a noose with a cigarette in its lips. Another showed dismembered legs placed in a sexually suggestive position.
Not all the photos are gruesome. Some simply expose the illness or agony of people in need of aid.
Steve O’Brien claims he recently resigned as an FDNY EMT over a blog he created on Tumblr called “Allons-y!” (“Let’s go,” in French), on which he whined about his job and uploaded photos he snapped while working.
One showed an apparently unconscious man on the sidewalk as four other medics stood around.
O’Brien now works as an EMT in Yonkers and is blogging again.
“My opinions of the filth I have to put up with on a daily basis; the savagery I endure for a meager salary, the abuse I take for people who cant be bothered to take care of them selves,” he writes.
Brooklyn FDNY EMT Mike Vale posted shots of patients in the back of an ambulance, including a man holding an ice pack on his head, on Flickr and Tumblr.
When confronted by The Post yesterday, he glumly admitted he’s in hot water.
“I am being punished for it right now,” Vale said. “What I’ve done has been taken care of. I’m waiting to be called in.”
Following Post inquiries, the department has suspended Vale for 30 days and launched a probe of Palmigiano with the city Department of Investigation, said FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon.
Gribbon said O’Brien and another former EMT, Chris Ebdon, were forced to resign over pictures they posted.
“Anyone who posts photos of patients without authorization will face termination,” he said.
But police and EMS workers continue to get into trouble for their social-media activities.
Last summer, 17 cops were disciplined for racist posts on Facebook following the West Indian Day Parade, and in 2010, EMT Mark Musarella was fired and sentenced to 200 hours of community service for putting on Facebook a cellphone picture he took of Staten Island strangling victim Caroline Wimmer.
Online behavior is under intense scrutiny by the FDNY and NYPD after The Post exposed the racist tweets of Dluhos and Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano’s son, Joe.
Last week, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly issued an order warning cops not to reveal their NYPD employment online or embarrass the force on social media.
“Members of the service utilizing personal social-media sites are to exercise good judgment and demonstrate the same degree of professionalism expected of them while performing their official duties,” his edict stated.
The FDNY said it is reviewing its social-media policies.
The announcements sent many first responders to their keyboards to shut down accounts.
“Everyone is cleaning up right now, locking their pages,” said the former EMS worker. “They don’t want to be the next featurette.”
Ebdon, who was forced out in 1998 and now works in Pasadena, Texas, warned colleagues: “If you take pictures of injured people, make sure they’re not identifiable.”
But he has a Flickr page that does the opposite.
Two of his shots are of a car crash in Brooklyn, showing police working to free a woman from a mangled red vehicle.
Not only does Ebdon include the date of the smashup, Aug. 14, 1994, his photos reveal the corner where it happened. And the face of the injured victim is clear.
Copyright 2013 N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc.
All Rights Reserved