Negligent Workers Allowed Back on the Job After Brief 30-day Suspension

The Daily News reported today that the two EMT workers accused of coldly ignoring a dying pregnant woman because they were on a break returned to work Thursday.  

In the same edition of the paper, the News reported that unemployment has risen in New York City to 10.6% in the past month. That means a lot of people are out of work.  Some of them, no doubt, would love to have a full time job right now working for the EMT.

I can't make sense of why the NYPD would give EMTs Jason Green and Melissa Jackson their job's back after simply slapping them with a 30-day suspension for abandoning Eutisha Rennix, the pregnant woman who became ill last month in a local restaurant. 

Green and Jackson are trained medics.  If they care at all about what they do, or people in general, regardless of whether they were sipping coffee together, they should have done everything they could to come to the aid of the ailing woman.  If they don't like their jobs, New York is full of out-of-work people who no doubt would be much better suited to the work. 

Hiring these two negligent workers back to me is tantamount to the New York Daily news hiring a reporter who doesn't like to write, or a fireman who hates climbing ladders.  It makes no sense.

Green only seems to care about one thing.  The News quoted him as saying:  "I'm relieved I still have a job," he said as he hugged a co-worker and playfully swatted another on the shoulder outside Metrotech in downtown Brooklyn. 

"This whole thing's been stressful," said Green. "I'm just hanging in there."

The dispatchers, who still face a criminal probe, were grabbing a bagel at a nearby Au Bon Pain when a worker told them 25-year-old Rennix was having trouble breathing.

Rennix, who was six months pregnant, had collapsed and was in the back of the store.

Jackson called a fellow dispatcher to report the incident but witnesses said she and Green did not try to help Rennix themselves.

The mom and her premature baby both died hours later. Green, 32, and Jackson, 23, denied they left the coffee shop and insisted that they did all they could to help.

The Fire Department has yet to interview Jackson or Green, but Fire Commissioner Salvatore Cassano said he could not comprehend a member of the FDNY not stopping to help.

"We help, that's what we do - no matter what," Cassano said Thursday. "When you raise your right hand and take that oath, that's what you're pledging to do."

"If you don't want to be the person to help, go find a job somewhere else."

Exactly, Commissioner.