Oklahoma Highway Patrol releases dash cam video from the Trooper vs. EMS incident

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Permalink Reply by paul raynel on June 15, 2009 at 6:52am

i struggle to see how this got so badly out of hand that trooper im my opinion need so go for a full sych evaluation

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Permalink Reply by Brandon on June 16, 2009 at 5:18am

If it was such an important call then why did the trooper responding not even get out of his car when he arrived on scene??

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Permalink Reply by DOWNS290 on June 16, 2009 at 8:13am

I cant find the actual dash video anywhere just little snipits of the family phone vid any one have any links that i can actually see?

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on June 16, 2009 at 8:39pm

Try the HTML link in the top-line post.

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Permalink Reply by Romulus14541 on June 16, 2009 at 9:13pm

All I can say after watching this video is ..... WOW Someone needs a HUG.....

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Permalink Reply by Jim on June 17, 2009 at 5:26pm

..and some "choe-chi" too!LOLOL

Which brings up the still unanswered questions of just "who" the unidentified female in stoopid trooper's car was.....

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Permalink Reply by Dennis Hapes on June 17, 2009 at 5:53pm

I think they were both wrong the medic never should have come out of the rig #1 and when he did he clearly asalted the officer the officer was being very disrespectfull to the driver in his tone words and body lang. but that does not justifie that actions of the medic he should have his card pulled for leaving his pt & leaving the back of the rig wide open did you see all the people in and out of that thing sure the drug bag was sitting out i am fire and EMS not LE so dont think this is coming from a cop and dont get me wrong I agee that he could have fallowed them tho the ER and handled it there but how did the officer know they had a pt? they werent runnig hot ? i would say when the offcer talked to the driver the diver should have said we have a pt fallow me to the ER and the officer should have done that ther was a lot of wrong actions by all partys but I would not pin it all on the cops some one stated below we save them he thins go bad but in the same respect they cover our a** when we are in a bad situation to it is a two way street the area I run in we have a great relationship with LE and it shows when we work the same scene a little respect from everyone would have gone a long ways

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on June 17, 2009 at 8:20pm

There is no issue of patient abandonment here. The paramedic, as the lead provider on the call, had the responsibility to tell the trooper that there was a patient on board. If the trooper had been less aggressive and listened a little, the situation could have been defused at the scene.

The paramedic momentarily being removed from patient care was due entirely to the trooper's actions, not due to anything that the paramedic did.

How did the medic assault the trooper? The two videos do not back up the trooper's assertions that he was assaulted. Unless he can find another video that shows something that the camera and trooper car videos don't show, the ovewhelming evidence shows that this situation was 100% within the trooper's power to prevent.

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Permalink Reply by anne potter on June 17, 2009 at 10:57pm

He did not tell the trooper there was a pt inside the rig it was only after the fact the trooper found out not saying he was right, but professionals runs a two way street and both failed horrible.. The emt got out of the rig , you tell me that the driver could not have got out of the rig talked to the trooper, told him that there was a pt on board.. hummmmmmmmmmm... I think the whole thing was a lack of pofessionalism all way around.


Besides that in all fairness who flips off a tropper ..Really

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Permalink Reply by Cody W. Nelson on June 18, 2009 at 1:34am

If you read the deposition the Paramedic and the EMT made. There was never a "flip-off" made. The EMT stated that he threw his hands in the air after the trooper made a comment on the ems dispatch channel about the EMTs driving. This was confirmed by the patients son who was riding in the passenger seat of the box.

We also do not run "hot" to the hospital with ALL patients. 80% of all transports nation wide are code 1 transports. This doesn't mean, however, that you are not caring a critical patient. I transport patients all the time having an active MI code 1. The reason is to keep the patient from becoming excited and putting more stress on the heart which requires more oxygen which in turn makes the heart work harder.

Pt abandonment has to occur when the Paramedic or EMT fails to provide care. The Paramedic did nothing wrong by stepping away from a patient he was MONITORING. That means that he had already provided patient care and was watching her progress. The video shows the Paramedic going in and out of the box while trying to diffuse the situation.

The Paramedic exited the box because of the speed the trooper came up on them with. The medic stated in his deposition that he believed that the trooper had a patient riding with him. There was an unidentified female sitting in the trooper car whenever this situation occurred.

The trooper is clearly in the wrong in this blatant show of true unprofessionalism. How are we not to assume that the trooper wasn't "showing off" for his rider.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on June 18, 2009 at 5:01am

Both members of the EMS crew told the trooper that they were transporting a patient, and more than once. That is clearly audible on the dash cam video. When the trooper told the paramedic that he was under arrest, the paramedic told the trooper to follow the ambulance to the hospital so that they could transfer care of the patient prior to making the arrest. The trooper was so angry that he obviously wasn't listening to anything that the EMS crew told him.

The trooper was focused on the driver, but the driver wasn't in charge of patient care, the paramedic was. It is a violation of Oklahoma state law for anyone to interfere with EMS in the performance of their duties. By stopping the ambulance, the trooper was in violation of that particular law. The paramedic was doing his job by a) informing the trooper that they had a patient on board and b) being an advocate for the patient, which is what he was supposed to be doing.

The EMS crew remained calm throughout the entire taped portion of the incident, based on both the trooper's dash camera video and the patient's son's cell phone video. They were completely focused on their patient and the patient's well-being for the entire time. That isn't "a lack of professionalism", it's the very definition of professionalism.

The EMS crew and the patient's family have both repeatedly stated that no one flipped off hte trooper as well.

So...what we have is a trooper who was traveling at an unsafe speed and who ran right up on the rear bumper of the ambulance, who doesn't understand the limited rear field of vision the ambulance operator has, who made an erroneous assumption that the ambulance swerving to the left was an attempt to block him when the ambulance was in fact avoiding another vehicle, who made an erroneous assumption that a gesture of surprise was an obscene gesture, who ran a stop sign while not running code to chase down the ambulance, and who was angry and out of control despite the evidence when he stopped the ambulance.

The Oklahoma District Attorney sent a letter to the trooper's commanding officer stating that the trooper's actions weren't proper and that there should be further review of those actions as well.

I fully realize that troopers have a dangerous, stressful job, just as we do. That doesn't excuse unsafe driving, hotheadedness, or putting a paramedic in a choke hold over a perceived slight.

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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on June 18, 2009 at 5:30am

Here is the Oklahoma law regarding interfering with EMS providers...

Oklahoma Statutes Citationized
Title 21. Crimes and Punishments
Chapter 20 - Assault and Battery
Section 650.3 - Interference with Emergency Medical Technicians or Care Providers - Punishment


Every person who willfully delays, obstructs or in any way interferes with an emergency medical technician or other emergency medical care provider in the performance of or attempt to perform emergency medical care and treatment or in going to or returning from the scene of a medical emergency, upon conviction, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six (6) months, or by a fine not to exceed Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00), or by both such fine and imprisonment.

That makes the trooper's traffic stop of the ambulance illegal, as they had a patient on board.

The choke hold constitutes a second, and more egregious violation of this law.

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