By Bill Carey
EMS1
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — A newly filed lawsuit claims that the City of Rochester and the ambulance company American Medical Response (AMR) failed to provide medical care to a Rochester man, resulting in his death.
On Nov. 30, Julian Coleman was in an AMR ambulance on the way to the hospital when EMS personnel called Rochester police to have him removed after he assaulted a crew member, WHAM reported.
WHEC reports that the lawsuit claims AMR personnel and Rochester Police officers violated Coleman’s civil rights. Two EMTs and two officers are named in the lawsuit.
Coleman had called 911 because he could not breathe. Inside the ambulance, he panicked and grabbed one of the EMS providers, prompting a call to the police to have him removed.
The video shows Coleman collapsing moments after getting out of the ambulance on Seneca Avenue. He lay face-down on the sidewalk for nearly two and a half minutes before anyone helped him. The lawsuit claims his brain had already been deprived of oxygen, WHEC reported.
Coleman was eventually taken back to the hospital, where he never regained consciousness. He died two weeks later due to an anoxic brain injury, according to WHEC. He had been on a respirator in intensive care and was taken off life support on Dec. 15.
“We feel extremely confident that the medicine is very straightforward here that he died because he was deprived of oxygen. If he had been given oxygen in the ambulance, he never would have even lost consciousness,” Stephen Schwarz, the lawyer for the family, said. “This is not an uncommon thing that they have to deal with, they’re trained. The training is not to set people out on the street and have them die.”
One of the EMTs was fired. The city and AMR have declined to comment.
