Ex-chief regrets D.C. fire merger with EMS

The former D.C. fire chief tasked with merging his firefighting and emergency medical services divisions to improve a beleaguered ambulance service now says the department should be divided, in large part because the "culture" of the historically white fire service makes employees indifferent to treating needy city residents.

Adrian H. Thompson, who led the department from July 2002 through December 2006 and took the initial steps to merge the responsibilities of the department's civilian EMS work force with its uniformed firefighters, said he no longer thinks the plan can work.

"It's not working," Mr. Thompson said in an interview with The Washington Times. "It's a cultural issue. They're not going to change the culture of this department."

The former chief, who is black, said white firefighters with generational ties to the department largely have been less accepting of the job's evolving responsibilities, particularly an increased emphasis in recent decades on providing pre-hospital care.

"They want to be firefighters and firefighters only," he said, adding that black firefighters have entered the department in significant numbers in only the past 20 or 30 years and largely have been more open to other responsibilities if it meant securing a job.

The former chief, who has rarely spoken publicly since his retirement and now frequently spends his days delivering Meals on Wheels, said black and needy D.C. residents continue to be marginalized and that little progress has been made in healing the city's racial divide.

He made the comments - and the charge of a "racial component" weighing over the D.C. fire service - in response to a case in which a paramedic is being investigated for inappropriately declining to transport a 2-year-old child last month after a 911 call complaining the child had trouble breathing. A second unit later transported the child, who died.

City officials on Thursday said an investigation had been initiated into whether criminal conduct or negligence was involved on the part of the senior paramedic, who is black.

Since that incident, reports have surfaced of another call in December in which a Northwest woman says she complained of breathing problems and was denied transport by a medical crew who did not think anything was wrong with her. The woman called 911 a second time and was transported to a hospital, where she says she spent a week in intensive care.

In the latter case, Mr. Thompson said the woman, who was black, seemed to have been treated like "a non-entity, a nobody" by responding paramedics.

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