EMTs who refused to help pregnant woman might face jail time for her death
Pictured: Eutisha Revee Rennix, 25. (Maisel/News)
Jason Green and Melissa Jackson, the two emergency medical technicians suspended without pay for abandoning a pregnant woman, might now face jail time for her death.
On December 9th, Eutisha Revee Rennix, six months pregnant, collapsed at Au Bon Pain, the eatery where she was working.
The office of the Emergency Medical Service dispatch center, was directly above Au Bon Pain. Two EMTs, Green and Jackson, were on site for their break, but as Rennix gasped for air on the floor of the shop, they left with their bagels after advising her co-workers to call 911.
"We've known them for years," said Au Bon Pain employee Tareen Brown, 29. "We thought they'd do something ... [but] they said there was nothing they could do."
"They wouldn't put in any effort," said barista Lourdes Colon, 19. "She was lying on the floor and they just told me call 911."
- NYDailyNews, December 22nd 2009, Kerry Burke and Jonathan Lemire
Now the Brooklyn's District Attorney's Office have considered the possibility of charging Green and Jackson with reckless endangerment. If convicted of first degree reckless endangerment, Green and Jackson could be sentenced up to a maximum of seven years. The second degree conviction, had a maximum sentence of one year. Green and Jackson have secured a lawyer, Douglas Rosenthal.
Jeff Samerson, an executive with EMS Union Local 2507, had resigned on the 22nd after members criticised him for coming to the defense of Green and Jackson. On Monday, Samerson had told reporters that the pair "have not had patient contact in years.", although Green and Jackson had recently been recertified. Samerson had now retracted his defense, stating that, "I think they should be fired. They had a duty to act, and they didn't." - NYPost, December 23, 2009, Murray Weiss, Alex Ginsberg and Dan Mangan
Pictured: Eutisha Rennix, who was buried before the EMT's involvement came to light. The deceased left behind a three year old son, who was now cared for by her mother, Cynthia Rennix - photo from Helayne SeidmanNY Post
Cythnia Rennix, the mother of the deceased, said that Green and Jackson was "very inhuman and heartless" for what they did.
"They have a duty to act, and they should have acted on that duty," the grieving mom told The Post. "I mean, if this was your own [daughter], how would you feel?"
- NYPost, December 23, 2009, Murray Weiss, Alex Ginsberg and Dan Mangan
Sources
NY Daily News - EMTs suspended as officials look into allegations they refused to help pregnant woman who later died by Kerry Burke and Jonathan Lemire, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS (Tuesday, December 22nd).
NY Post - EMT duo may face jail time by Murray Weiss, Alex Ginsberg and Dan Mangan (December 23, 2009)
- with a video statement from Cynthia Rennix
Associated Press - NYC victim's mom: EMTs were 'inhuman' not to help by Deepti Hajela (Tuesday, December 22nd)
- Mentions the three year old son, who's care would be part of the victim's mother's decision over whether or not she would pursue legal action/font>
ETA, The Politics / Why I looked up this story today
I first heard about the callous treatment of this pregnant woman from a post in this community two days ago.
Today I wondered, as I sometimes wondered, whenever someone was treated so callously without reason, that one wondered if the horrible person doing this to them even counts them as human...I wondered if the neglected woman who died, was an African-American woman. Society have a racism problem where black pregnant women are painted as a threat, that oh no, they are outbreeding the whites. The racists, whether they identify themselves as such or not, see black mothers as subhuman, especially if they weren't wearing a ring on their finger.
I looked her up, and Ms.Rennix is black-skinned. I've read about five articles on the subject, most of them mostly the same, only two of them mentioning her three year old son (in the others, the focus was that she died pregnant). There was no mention of a co-parent (other than Eutisha's mother, Cythia Rennix)
So, with this mind, consider this:
a) The EMTs were regulars at the cafe, why Rennix's co-workers were so additionally shocked that they refused to help. A combination of racism and contempt for single mothers, might have contributed to their decision not to help.
b) The responsibility for Eutisha Revee Rennix goes further back then the EMTs who refused to help. Ms.Rennix was 25, already a mother of one, was six month pregnant, and working in an industry that generally isn't very well paid. Was Ms.Rennix receiving pre-natal care?
I strongly believe that any capable state is morally responsible for caring for its most vulnerable citizens. Even for those who believe that people should pay for their own healthcare, what about the children? Even if you argue that people would never go hungry or untreated if they only work hard and smart, wence upon they will be rewarded accordingly, fairly, what about the children?
Would Ms.Rennix have survived if the EMTs had helped? Would Ms.Rennix not have collapsed at all, if she was receiving good pre-natal care? Eutisha Revee Rennix who was only 25, whose death leaves behind her elderly mother and her three old son, whose grandmother have noticed that he misses his mother a lot?
What about the result of her five month pregnancy? I'm not sure if the pregnancy was declared lost two hours after Rennix's death, or if a baby was brought into the world, and then lost (one source mentions that her unborn baby died two hours after her death). Either way, America lost one citizen that day, and another one of the future.
Crossposted to ontd_political