The executive director for Valley Emergency Medical Services expects policy changes — and possible discipline — after a VEMS board member got into an out-of-state accident in a company car last month.
Executive Director Robert Pettinella said the VEMS Board of Directors will discuss the incident at a special meeting tonight (Tuesday Jan. 3) at the Seymour Ambulance Association headquarters.
The VEMS Board of Directors investigated the incident last week.
“The results (of the investigation) will be laid out tonight,” Pettinella said. “I would think there are going to be some kind of changes. New policies… Discipline is possible.”
VEMS is a regional paramedic service for the Valley, overseen by a Board of Directors made up of Valley EMS leaders.
The board member driving the car in the accident was treasurer Madalene Taggart, who is the mother of board president Jerry Schwab.
Background
On Dec. 21, Taggart took VEMS’s new 2011 Ford Expedition to Virginia with her son, (not Jerry Schwab) and his girlfriend.
On the ride home a tractor-trailer truck hit the Ford Expedition while trying to avoid another car, according to Jared Heon, the vice president for the VEMS Board of Directors.
No one in the Ford Expedition was injured.
But the incident prompted questioning from VEMS board members and Pettinella, who were unaware that the car was being taken out of state for personal business.
No policy exists that would have banned the trip, Pettinella said Tuesday.
Currently, VEMS board members and employees are allowed to use company cars, Pettinella said.
VEMS has a policy for the employee use, but no policy for the board members, who are volunteers, Pettinella said.
“We were investigating how and why a company vehicle was taken out of state,” Pettinella. “There’s no policy in effect currently. As a result of this, there will be one.”
Precedent
Jerry Schwab said the trip was made to pick up personal belongings of the father of a volunteer Oxford Ambulance Association member.
Schwab, who was not in the car during the trip, said he suggested Taggart take the VEMS car to accrue more highway mileage before it was put into service.
“The mechanic recommends that the vehicles not get lights and sirens and get driven for emergency load until the vehicle has 2,000 regular driving miles,” Schwab said.
That mileage has traditionally been put on the cars during personal trips, he said Tuesday. Schwab said the Ford Expedition had less than 2,000 miles when Taggart took it to Virginia.
“Nothing’s been done inappropriately,” Schwab said. “It was an attempt to get those miles on.”
Schwab said he doesn’t believe the use of the car was wrong, but welcomed the review by the VEMS board.
“I think the board has a responsibility to make sure things are done appropriately, in the past, present and the future,” Schwab said.
The Ford Expedition is currently being repaired.
Until further notice a temporary policy has been put into place that no VEMS vehicles are to be taken out of state for any reason other than the request for response for a medical emergency, according to Heon.
