Saturday, May 2, 2009

Mercy Regional Ambulance Service announced Friday it has fired seven members of its clinical staff, the same day a McCracken County grand jury indicted three of them
on drug charges.

Commonwealth Attorney Tim Kaltenbach said he expected arrest warrants for Raymond Huffmaster, Marcus Edwin West and Putter Hahn to be issued next week. They will be arraigned at 1:30 p.m. June 19. He declined to comment further on the charges.

The grand jury charged Huffmaster with five felony counts of theft of a controlled substance for stealing Valium, an anti-anxiety drug, and Fetanyl, a painkiller, from Mercy. West was co-indicted on two of those counts. Hahn was charged with misdemeanor trafficking in Xanax.

According to the indictments, the crimes allegedly occurred between April 1 and 16. The indictments were filed late Friday.

In a statement attorney Ted Hutchins of Denton & Keuler issued on behalf of Mercy,
the agency said it notified Paducah police and the Kentucky Board of Emergency
Medical Services when it became aware of the unlawful or inappropriate conduct of
emergency medical technicians and paramedics.

“At that time, Mercy Regional terminated or suspended the employment of all persons believed to have any involvement in the matter,” the statement said. “To date, Mercy Regional has terminated the employment of seven members of its clinical staff. All terminations were based on information uncovered by Mercy Regional’s internal
investigation or the investigation of the Paducah Police Department. Mercy Regional
does not believe any other members of its clinical staff are or have been involved in
unlawful or inappropriate conduct, and no further terminations are planned at this
time.”

Hutchins declined to specify the involvement of the four other terminated employees.

“Whether what they did was criminal is up to the authorities,” he said. “We certainly
felt it was at least inappropriate conduct and termination was warranted.”

He declined further comment.

Lourdes and Western Baptist hospitals jointly own the nonprofit ambulance service.

As published in the Paducah Sun, May 2, 2009