By Phaedra Haywood
The Santa Fe New Mexican
SANTA FE, N.M. — A newly released police report about a Rio Rancho man accused of posing as a certified emergency medical technician or paramedic says that among the tasks he performed over a 17-month period was tending to people at the state Capitol during the 2014 session of the Legislature, where he took vital signs, administered medications and, on two occasions, called in prescriptions to a Santa Fe pharmacy.
“He may have also ordered laboratory blood work for an unnamed representative,” the state police report says of 47-year-old David Phillips.
The New Mexican reported earlier this week that a Santa Fe County grand jury had indicted Phillips on charges of forgery and misrepresenting himself as an EMT or paramedic.
Before officials discovered that Phillips had faked his credentials, police said, he also responded to an emergency call about a person suffering shortness of breath and tended to a heart attack victim who died.
The indictment filed early this month alleges Phillips used false credentials to defraud the state Department of Health, Glorieta Volunteer Fire Department, Santa Fe County Fire Department and the state Legislative Health Services between September 2012 and February 2014.
Reached at his Rio Rancho home on Thursday, Phillips said he was “just as shocked as can be” about the accusations, but he declined to comment further. His attorney, Gene Chavez of Albuquerque, said he hadn’t seen the indictment yet but would enter a plea of not guilty on Phillips’ behalf.
The police report says officials became suspicious of Phillips because of the way he had handled a call involving a suicidal person while working as a volunteer for the Glorieta Volunteer Fire Department in February 2014.
Phillips was the first to respond to the call, according to the report, and when the patient said the call was a misunderstanding and refused to be treated or transported, Phillips canceled responses by other units, contrary to protocol that prohibits such action when dealing with a potentially suicidal person.
That incident prompted a Santa Fe County Fire Department captain to call Kyle Thornton, the state bureau chief in charge of paramedics throughout the state, who later told police he had investigated Phillips and determined “everything on file for [Phillips] to legally practice medical aid within the State of New Mexico had been forged.”
Thornton also said Phillips mentioned he was a former United States Army Ranger who had received training as a physician’s assistant and that he claimed on his Facebook profile that he had a master’s degree in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Neither the U.S. Army Medical Department nor MIT had any record of Phillips having been trained there, the report says.
The EMT certificate in Phillips’ personnel file allegedly was an altered document bearing a registry number that had been issued to a volunteer firefighter in Angel Fire. That volunteer told police he still had his original card and didn’t know Phillips, though he said the name sounded familiar. The file also contained a Firefighter Level 2 certificate issued by the state of Vermont, which, the report says, also was found to be fraudulent.
The report says Phillips participated in 16 missions for the New Mexico State Police Search and Rescue between September 2012 and June 2013 and represented himself on 15 sign-in sheets as an EMT, paramedic or both.
During a mission in the Gila National Forest in October 2013, the report says, Phillips and another man were sent to aid the father of a missing camper after the father suffered a heart attack at the family’s campsite. The man died at the scene, the report said.
When a Santa Fe County Fire Department captain confronted Phillips about evidence that he had used false credentials, the report says, Phillips called the investigation a “witch hunt” and said he “never intended to hurt anyone or give the department a black eye.”
Phillips was suspended from duty, the report said, and then he told the Glorieta Pass Volunteer Fire Department that due to a medical condition, he was “removing himself from service.”
Phillips is scheduled to be arraigned next week in Santa Fe before state District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer.
———
©2015 The Santa Fe New Mexican (Santa Fe, N.M.)