By Bob Strohm
bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
Central Joint Ambulance District board members will have many questions to review after more accusations surfaced Wednesday about the performance and actions of ambulance service provider Life Support.
Backing up Lindsay Powers’ report from January’s meeting, former Life Support employee Sean Spangler spoke about numerous incidents he feels put residents in the district at risk.
“I worked with the company for seven weeks. I started Dec. 1, my first shift was Dec. 2, and I knew right away that as LifeStar ran the contract for 10 years Life Support had no intention of running it the same way,” Spangler said. “Several conflicts happened over the seven weeks that I worked here and I was let go; fired the day after the last board meeting. January 22 Jesse Sipe called me into the office saying Chris Kennedy asked him to come over to the office to let me go.”
“December 2 my first shift here, two wound care patients at the same time to BCH, and only one truck in the district. I make a note of it on my phone,” Spangler said. “That goes on I work a few shifts. December 23 I answer the phone for the first time, and it’s the dispatcher in Galion. She said, ‘I need you to BCH, got one going to Heartland. At the time we had Natalie and Brittany on their way back from Riverside, and I didn’t know where they were from the district. So I asked Angie Young if they knew where they were from the district, because we couldn’t go on this run without another truck in the district, and that is what started the crap storm that got Ms. Powers fired.”
Spangler then brought up the contract Life Support signed, alleging that the situation was in breach of contract.
County Prosecutor Matt Crall was on hand to interpret the contract.
“When two of them (ambulances) are on emergency runs the contract requires that one is available for emergency runs. So if you have two on emergency runs you have to have one left with a crew available for emergency runs,” Crall said.
“Well when we got back from Toledo, Chris Kennedy was in the office and he highlighted that paragraph and said that ‘I paid a lawyer a lot of money to interpret the contract to say that we can do a second non-emergency run as long as we are in the district.’ I looked at him and I said, ‘Don’t you think LifeStar would have done that for 10 years if they were allowed?’ “And he shrugged his shoulders that was his answer,” Spangler said.
“That was when he told Lindsay that if you want to see another ambulance company go under go ahead and sit and wait for these runs. And she said we don’t want any ambulance company to go under. We want to do what is right for the CJAD, and the residents. At that point Lindsay was done.”
“So what started out as providing a second non-emergency run in the district to provide the service to a district resident spread out to taking a patient from Galion to Ontario on a non-emergency run? So how far has it spread out, how far can we go with this second unit taking a non-emergency run,” Spangler questioned.
CJAD President Dale Sipe asked if Spangler would mind speaking at the March meeting so the CJAD board can digest the information provided.
Chatfield Fire Chief Jeremy Dunn spoke to the CJAD about a run in which employees of the Ohio Mutual Insurance Group were disappointed with the response time, level of service, and attitude by employees of Life Support on a run on January 30, 2015.
“They didn’t go to the front door where the receptionist was, but stood at a side door that nobody watches,” Dunn said. “When they did get inside they were more upset with the person who made the call and that they didn’t tell them what door to go to rather than patient care. Since I am also the fire chief of Chatfield Fire Department I told them any time they have any EMS stuff call me at the same time they call 9-1-1 so I can be of service.”
John Brown took issue with Life Support saying that radio traffic from the sheriff’s office indicated that Life Support was responding from 598 and 330 while no vehicle was present on Dec. 12.
Brown also asked why on a Dec. 6 call to New Washington a unit marked enroute to the village was changed after another unit advised they were just coming into town. The first unit asked if the second unit could take the run three to four minutes into the call.
Spangler responded to Brown’s Dec. 6 allegation by saying that the first truck didn’t take the call due to having a patient on board.
CJAD President Dale Sipe asked Brown to procure the documents at the March meeting on those instances.
Dale Sipe explained that the CJAD board is taking the allegations seriously and doing research on each of them.
“At this point we are looking into the allegations to see if there are anything the board can do about the allegations,” Dale Sipe said. “Are the allegations breaking the contract, are they misinterpreting the contract?”
“They are a young company. They’re fairly new, but they need to take and understand where our view is as a community we have 26,000 people we are representing so our safety is an issue,” Dale Sipe continued. “It sounds like the with the people coming in tonight the community is concerned and almost all the people coming in tonight are highly qualified people – EMT’s, firemen – so they’re concerned. Their concern has heightened what we want to do.”
“The concern is real; there is a concern. It is not something we are going to let down, we have committees working on it. So I think our next meeting you will see results,” Dale Sipe finished.
Board vice-president Steve Aichholtz responded to Lindsay Powers’ report from the January meeting.
“There are concerns with times and this and that, and they think that we are not aware of it, but we are aware and trying to work with this. The alternative is nothing. They (Life Support) have to work with us and we them,” Aichholtz said.
In Life Support’s report to the CJAD Life Support COO Jess Sipe said that the station received 256 9-1-1 calls which were up 10 from the previous month.
The next CJAD meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. on March 18 at the Plymouth Street Station.