The Associated Press
JASPER, Tenn. — Jasper’s board of alderman fired Fire Chief Paul West, who said the mayor disagreed with his efforts to answer other emergency calls in town when an ambulance was not immediately available.
“We have had over the years several life threatening incidents in town and no ambulances available,” West said Tuesday, the day after Mayor Billy Simpson announced the board’s unanimous vote to fire him. “All we wanted to do was first responder in life threatening emergencies.”
Simpson declined to discuss the reason for the firing, but he disagreed with West’s contention that it was due to a “personality conflict.”
West said he was among about seven of the volunteers who have trained as first responders, in addition to their firefighting roles. He said the department has either bought or obtained through grants three automated defibrillators, three oxygen delivery units with spare bottles and seven basic trauma bags, or first aid kits.
West said Simpson refused to allow them to use the equipment, due to increased liability exposure.
Simpson, who became mayor a few months after West was hired, did not return a telephone message seeking comment.
At the Monday meeting, Simpson cited various reasons for terminating West, who said he was the first paid fire chief in the town of about 3,500 residents.
West “could care less about the chain of command for purchasing supplies and equipment for the fire department, this is a major concern,” the mayor said.
West said the mayor warned him not to talk to the media about life saving equipment going unused. The chief talked to a Chattanooga television station in July.
“The comments made by Chief West to the television media are hurtful personally and in my opinion, are detrimental to the town of Jasper.” the mayor said Monday.
West, 53, said he was hired to the $30,000-a-year job as fire chief in 2000 and inherited “literally an indoor junkyard.”
West said Grandview Medical Center operates two ambulances at night and covers more than 500 square miles in mountainous southeast Tennessee. The hospital is about 4 miles from Jasper.
West said other communities in Marion County operate “first responder” services.
In June, a Marion County commissioner suffered a heart attack at a downtown meeting and later died. Less than a half mile away, life saving equipment was available, but West said he was not allowed to use the emergency equipment.
“His family members said they got his heart started 35 minutes later at the hospital,” West said. “The problem was no oxygen” during that time.
“This wasn’t to run countywide, only for city of Jasper and for life threatening emergencies,” West said. “They want (firefighters) to only come out when there is a fire and everything else let it go.”