A paramedic who was employed by East Hampton Village has sued the village along with the village’s fire and emergency medical services administrator, Suffolk County, the medical director of the county’s emergency medical services division, and the Montauk Fire District’s medical director following his suspension in the wake of a 2024 call for medical assistance in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods.
Thomas Barbieri, the paid paramedic, asserts that he was unfairly suspended following the July 2024 call, describing in a complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court on Aug. 12 a somewhat disorganized effort by the first responders who had arrived before him.
At approximately 4:21 a.m. on July 10, 2024, Mr. Barbieri was dispatched and responded to the call. An elderly man had fallen at home and was unconscious, according to a New York State Health Department incident form. Town police were the first to arrive on the scene, Mr. Barbieri’s complaint alleges, followed around 10 minutes later by village E.M.S. personnel. Upon arriving, the police determined that the patient “displayed no signs of life,” according to the complaint. A death investigation report filed to New York State by police stated that the patient “was unresponsive, cold to the touch, showed purpling of the skin around both hands and lips, demonstrating signs of lividity. Responding officers to the scene did not perform [cardiopulmonary resuscitation].”
Village emergency medical technicians also observed and evaluated the patient, the complaint alleges, but did not apply an automated external defibrillator, or A.E.D., a portable device that analyzes the heart’s rhythm and can deliver an electrical shock to help restore a normal heartbeat in individuals experiencing sudden cardiac arrest. Five minutes after arriving, the complaint alleges, E.M.T.s determined that CPR should be started on the patient. Manual compressions were begun and an external cardiac compression machine subsequently applied.
Mr. Barbieri states that his arrival was delayed by repeated failures of global positioning system data that misdirected and recalculated the directions to the scene. He states that upon arriving, he observed the village E.M.T.s moving the patient from where he was found to an ambulance with the external cardiac compression machine in place. He asserts that an E.M.T. said police had told them “that the ambulance just needed ‘to pronounce’ the patient.”
Asked by Mr. Barbieri if an A.E.D. had been applied or if Medical Control, the physician supervision at Stony Brook University Hospital, had been contacted, the answer to both was no, he alleges. Mr. Barbieri states that he then instructed E.M.T.s to put the patient down so that he could perform an assessment.
“[B]eing presented with a patient where CPR was not begun by first responders until approximately 15 minutes after the first initial responders arrived on the scene and where no A.E.D. pads and cardiac leads were present on the patient” upon his arrival, Mr. Barbieri telephoned Medical Control to discuss the patient’s condition with a physician. He alleges that while he was on the phone, “a cardiac defibrillation or shock was allegedly administered to the patient” by persons unknown to him. The Medical Control physician issued “an order for termination of resuscitative efforts,” he said.
After the patient was pronounced dead and while he was speaking with the patient’s spouse, Mr. Barbieri’s complaint states, E.M.S. personnel “gratuitously, and without a request” from Mr. Barbieri, “powered off and removed” Mr. Barbieri’s advanced life support cardiac monitor from the patient. He states that he was never told that a shock had been delivered to the patient.
The following day, Mr. Barbieri says that a village official called him and accused him of having “shocked” the patient. A day later, the official called again to inform Mr. Barbieri that he was being removed from the town’s paramedic schedule pending an investigation, per a directive from Gerry Turza, the village’s fire and E.M.S. administrator.
He adds that the village submitted a New York State Health Department Form 4461, used to document and report E.M.S.-related incidents involving injury or death. The form, he states, “falsely and intentionally alleged that a patient was injured or died as a result of E.M.S. involvement of [Mr. Barbieri],” and that Mr. Turza had submitted the form. The defendants “knew or should have known” that the Form 4461 “contained material misstatements of fact” and that Mr. Barbieri’s actions “neither contributed to nor resulted in an injury to or death of the patient.”
A State Health Department Reportable Incident Form states that “inconsistencies were discovered with regards to adherence to [advanced life support] protocols” and notes a delay in Mr. Barbieri’s response, stated as approximately 35 minutes. The form further states that Mr. Barbieri “failed to relay critical information to the Medical Control physician.”
Mr. Barbieri’s complaint names Jason Winslow, medical director of the county’s E.M.S. division, who notified officials, including at the Regional Emergency Medical Services Council, recommending Mr. Barbieri’s removal from the Regional Emergency Medical Advisory Committee credentialed list pending a state investigation.
Mr. Winslow, Mr. Barbieri alleges, published information that Mr. Barbieri had been suspended from paramedic privileges in East Hampton and Montauk, where he was a volunteer, “when he knew or should have known such allegation was untrue,” according to the complaint. The complaint also states that Mr. Winslow informed Mr. Barbieri that the Montauk Fire District’s medical director wanted to prohibit Mr. Barbieri from practicing as an E.M.S. provider in Suffolk, but that Mr. Winslow “talked him down” and suggested that he instead be suspended from paramedic privileges in the Montauk Fire District.
But on July 29, 2024, a State Health Department official told Mr. Barbieri that the State Bureau of Emergency Medical Services had not rescinded or otherwise limited Mr. Barbieri’s paramedic privileges and that he could continue to work as a paramedic for any agency unless that agency’s medical director restricted or removed his paramedic privileges.
The following day, Mr. Barbieri alleges, Mr. Turza sent an email “purportedly suspending [Mr. Barbieri’s] ability to provide patient care at ANY level of training or certification” as a member of the village’s E.M.S. Department and forbidding him from contacting any E.M.S. paid or volunteer staff to discuss the incident.
Mr. Barbieri’s complaint states that as a result of his paramedic privileges being suspended, he has “lost and continues to lose the opportunity to work as a paramedic for agencies on Long Island.” Mr. Turza, he alleges, “published knowingly false and misleading information” with the intent of damaging Mr. Barbieri’s reputation and the objective of damaging his ability to be employed as a paramedic. The complaint alleges that he failed to follow state and village protocols for the investigation of the conduct of village personnel at the scene on July 10, 2024.
Mr. Barbieri further alleges that the defendants “failed to use the established protocols to investigate the allegations and verify the facts and circumstances of the call in question.” The complaint cites “irreparable damage to his reputation and further damages in the form of lost income and business opportunities,” and asserts that Mr. Barbieri “is entitled to punitive damages” in an amount to be determined at trial.
Mr. Turza declined to comment on the matter, as did Mayor Jerry Larsen.
