The Benefit of the Doubt

It has recently been announced that FDNY EMT Jason Green, made famous for the December 9 incident where he and his girlfriend (fellow EMT Melissa Jackson) walked away from a woman having a seizure, will be buried with full honors. He was shot outside a SoHo nightclub known as the Greenhouse over the weekend after being forced into a fight that he repeatedly tried to walk away from.

We've all heard the original story. Right now, some in EMS are spitting nails over the fact that Green will be buried with full honors, since he supposedly watched a woman die. I would urge caution before jumping to this conclusion.

What do we really know about the case? We've heard an awful lot from the press, but we all know just how accurate the media is. We all know from experience because we've all wanted to pitch our remotes through the TV when we see our calls on the news and the reporters can't get it right. We shouldn't be surprised by this when it happens. Time and time again, however, we find ourselves drawn into the same trap that we get irritated with the unwashed masses for when they judge us unfairly. Don't crucify us, we beg of them. You haven't heard the whole story. Don't believe everything you see on TV.

Then, when something like the Au Bon Pain incident or the Pittsburgh incident happens, we're all over it like flies on a cowpie. You heartless bastards! How could you walk away from a dying patient? You have no business being in this profession! Voila - we have become that which we loathe.

The fact is that we know bare-bones facts and little else. To hear the media tell it, you'd think Green and Jackson sat sipping coffee while 25-year-old Eutisha Rennix collapsed behind the counter and began agonal breathing. In reality, the picture that I've seen painted by sources NOT in the media is that Rennix felt ill and left the counter area and retreated to a private break room where she either had a seizure or began having an asthma attack, at which point a co-worker approached the EMT's and asked them what to do.

How do we know that they saw anything? How do we know what the co-worker said when she asked the EMT's for help? If I were just getting off shift and a restaurant worker asked me what to do for someone complaining of difficulty breathing, I'd have done the exact same thing: tell them to call 911. Personally, I'd have offered to call myself so I could explain the situation calmly to the dispatcher and they'd know exactly who and what to send, but I'm not in New York.

Not to mention these weren't field EMT's with an ambulance waiting outside. They were dispatchers taking a break from their office in the building directly above the restaurant. If their dispatch center was busy, I can see their supervisors giving them strict instructions to return as quickly as humanly possible. Without base-level BSI and rudimentary equipment, there's nothing two EMT-B's could have done.

That said, I find it difficult to understand why so many in the EMS community are so quick to judge these two as pariahs not worthy of a proper burial. As in my previous post, I have to agree they could have done things differently, but we cannot be so quick to judge so harshly. Kelly Grayson has some words of wisdom for exactly this type of scenario.

I recall an incident in which I was off-duty, still in my uniform and headed home, when I came upon one of the worst wrecks I'd ever seen. I'll blog more about the details later, but when I walked up to the vehicle with the worst damage, a visual once-over told me all I needed to know; the driver was already dead. His color (or lack thereof, more appropriately), blown pupils and misshapen cranium told me what I didn't need to palpate a missing pulse for. There were other people hurt, so I moved on. The man who approached me when I pulled up behind the scene became very flustered and he very physically stopped me. "Where are you going? You can't just leave him there," he said. I explained that the man was beyond my help and there were other people who I could help, and he yelled, "how do you know? You didn't even touch him! You didn't try anything! You have to help him!"

None of us appreciate that sort of behavior. Yet in this case as in others we freely engage in it without taking a moment to give the situation some real thought.

I'd be willing to bet that after six years as an EMT and dispatcher, we'd likely hear many more stories about the good Green has done. We may well change our minds. Hindsight is always 20/20, and it's easy for us to point out mistakes once we know the outcome. As we should have in the Pittsburgh case, we should have given this brother the benefit of the doubt before we let the media tell us what to believe. Not one of us is perfect.