By Maria Babbage
The Canadian Press

TORONTO - Ornge failed to do its job when it spent $6 million on medical interiors for its new helicopters that didn't allow paramedics to perform CPR and other life-saving procedures at all times, a former top executive testified Wednesday.

Tom Lepine, who was fired as Ornge's chief operating officer, said he only discovered the problem with the medical interiors of the AW-139 helicopters in late 2010, after the first chopper went into service.

Ornge paid $144 million for 12 helicopters from Italian firm AgustaWestland, whose dealings with Ornge have come under intense scrutiny. It also paid $6 million for the Swiss-manufactured Aerolite medical interiors.

Lepine, a former paramedic, acknowledged that Ornge didn't ensure that the helicopter interiors were suitable when it made the deal.

"I think it was an absolute failure of process that there was no prototype done," he told a legislative committee.

"That would have been caught if we had done a prototype and it was not done."

Full Story: http://www.ems1.com/air-medical-transport/articles/1295689-5-incidents-resulting-in-patient-death-linked-to-ORNGE-helicopter-interiors/

NEW ORLEANS — A New Orleans paramedic received more than $1.5 million from Medtec Ambulance Corp. for injuries incurred while treating a patient in the back of an ambulance.

A federal jury found that Medtec was responsible for the design of the bench seat that caused the injuries of paramedic Ryan Earls, 26, in Dec. 2010, according to The Times-Picayune.

Earls was working on a gunshot victim when the ambulance reportedly hit a bump, causing the bench to collapse, said his attorney, David Oestreicher.

He was removed from the ambulance at the hospital, having sustained nerve damage as well as bulging discs in his back, NOLA.com said.

The seat had "imploded," said Earls's partner, paramedic Matthew Alewine, who was driving one of the 15 Medtec ambulances leased for 10 years to New Orleans Emergency Medical Services in 2010.

Earls returned to work as a dispatcher after the accident but could not do his job because of his nerve damage, and the city fired him in Jan., Ostreicher told NOLA.com.

The jury's award to Earls included $200,000 for his loss of future wages and benefits, $600,000 in medical expenses and $700,000 for his pain and suffering.
http://www.ems1.com/ambulances-emergency-vehicles/articles/1271324-Ex-paramedic-gets-settlement-for-New-Orleans-ambulance-injury/