FDNY Medics Charged Charged with False Reporting

MAY 23, 2015 SOURCE: FIREHOUSE.COM NEWS

Two FDNY paramedics are accused of falsely reporting their actions on a patient care report.

Daniel Ornstein, 33, and Joseph Farrell, 39, responded to a cardiac arrest on Staten Island in July 2014.

The patient's wife told the medics that he had a do not resuscitate order, but she was unable to find it, the Staten Island Advance reports.

While they performed CPR, the wife showed health care proxy paperwork to the crews. According to policy, they were not allowed to accept it.

Their paperwork indicated that the patient received an endotracheal tube and intravenous medications. According to the criminal complaint, they did neither and they were questions by their supervisor, who arrived after the patient was pronounced dead.

A law enforcement told the newspaper that the two "admitted to it," because they sympathized with the wife.

The supervisor reported the discrepancies, which opened a case with the Department of Investigation.

Farrell and Ornstein were arrested Wednesday, and are charged with first- and second-degree offering a false instrument for filing, and second-degree falsifying business records.

"We believe that these two paramedics did not act in any ill manner or out of personal gain, but rather were driven by compassion to the patient who was terminally ill, and his wife, who was suffering watching him die, and that in the process, the Department of Investigation is accusing them of deviating from department procedure," Local 2507 executive board member George Burbano said.