By Randall Higgins
Chattanooga Times Free Press
CLEVELAND, Tenn. — The Bradley County Fire Board and the EMC Committee will talk this morning about whether the county may be liable for a county fire crew’s refusal to help ambulance workers at a car crash two weeks ago.
Some county firefighters allegedly refused to help extract a victim from a vehicle and load the injured person into a county ambulance. The scene was recorded by an emergency vehicle’s dashboard camera.
The incident led Commissioner Ben Atchley Jr. at Tuesday’s County Commission meeting to call for Fire Chief Dewey Woody to be fired or resign.
“As a patient lay hurting on a stretcher, firefighters were ordered by their chief away from the stretcher and (to) stand on the shoulder of the road and refuse to help Bradley County EMS personnel move the patient from the car to the ambulance,” Mr. Atchley said at the meeting. “The facts are not in dispute. Statements from Bradley County deputies, Bradley County EMS and a state trooper back up the video evidence.
“Fire Chief Dewey Woody allowed a personality conflict to interfere with the well-being of a patient,” said Mr. Atchley, who serves with the Cleveland Fire Department.
Commissioner Mark Hall said he has liability concerns too but added, “Calling for his job is a stretch.”
Mr. Hall said it could be a conflict of interest for Mr. Atchley, a Cleveland firefighter, to call for the county fire chief to be fired.
Chief Woody and EMS Director Danny Lawson were at the commission meeting Tuesday.
Chief Woody told commissioners there was an incident that day.
“There’s varying opinions, depending on where you were standing and what you witnessed, as to what actually occurred,” he said.
Mr. Lawson said he had nothing to add but would answer questions if asked. No commissioner asked.
Neither would comment after the meeting.
Other commissioners, including Chairman Michael Plumley, said Mr. Woody works for County Mayor D. Gary Davis’ office, not the commission.
“In my opinion it is not the business of the commission to try to manage the mayor’s employees,” Dr. Plumley said.
Mr. Davis said there was no indication that patient care was “compromised in any way” by the incident. He said he met with the department heads and agreed on a plan that “will not only improve both departments but also prevent an incident of this type from happening again.”
Mr. Davis alluded to the next county elections, now 15 months away, and said there will likely be other issues where “some people are so dead set to get things like this in the media.”