** UK vandals smear feces and red paint on rapid response car as medic attends patient
** South Carolina EMS director fired after writing book that criticizes unnamed medics
UNITED KINGDOM NEWS
** East Midlands police in Leicester are investigating after a Monday incident in which a rapid response car was covered in feces and red paint while a medic attended a call in an area trailer park. The Leicester Mercury (July 28) said the vandalism took place around 7:30 p.m. in Bagworth. According to the newspaper, the practitioner was inside a trailer attending to a patient for about a half an hour when the smearing occurred. Feces was placed on the side panels, but also on door handles, forcing the provider to use gloves to access the vehicle. The car will now remain in the body shop for a couple of weeks as repairs are done. Paramedic Tim Hargraves, who decried the incident, said the service is appealing to the public to come forward with any information that might lead to the culprits. Crimestoppers is also involved.
UNITED STATES NEWS
** A South Carolina EMS director, who published a memoir tagging colleagues with unflattering names, has been fired. That is the word from The Post and Courier (Melissa Boughton/July 27) which said Charleston County’s chief paramedic Don Lundy, 62, was let go after 15 years in the job. According to the newspaper, Lundy’s July 4th autobiography dubbed some medics as “life sucking, energy draining bags of annoying hell,†in his book Paramedic of the Heart: True Stories of Lives Changed. The book is available on Amazon.com. Lundy, meanwhile, reacted with shock at his firing, saying negative comments were not directed against any current employees, but describe only some of the characters he has encountered in the 40 years he has worked EMS. Six different employees belonging to 4 different departments are mentioned;none are named.
