By Martin E. Comas
The Orlando Sentinel
MINNEOLA, Fla. — More details have emerged about a dispute that erupted between a paramedic and a fire lieutenant during medical calls, spurring City Manager Sam Oppelaar to shut down the Fire Department for two days last week.
The issue started when Minneola paramedic Joshua Smith and Lt. Steven Sette, along with another firefighter, responded to seemingly routine calls to treat a cardiac-arrest patient and an elderly woman who fell out of her bed at a nursing home and injured her head, according to a city investigation.
It was during those two calls that Sette and Smith bickered with each other about who had proper authority at the scene.
In the end, the lieutenant was given a warning by Oppelaar, city officials said.
Moreover, the controversy occurred only a week after City Council members proposed tacking a $234 fire-rescue assessment fee on every home to pay for the increasingly expensive Fire Department.
At the first call April 11, Smith wrote in his report to the city that he asked Sette several times to help him by placing an air bag over the cardiac patient’s mouth and perform rescue breaths. But Sette, who is a licensed emergency medical technician but not a paramedic, stalled for several minutes and Smith started the rescue breaths with the bag himself, according to reports. Eventually, Sette took over the air bag on the patient, according to written statements by Smith and the other firefighter.
At the second call, Sette ordered Smith to stop treating the elderly woman and help set up a landing zone for a medical helicopter, according to reports filed by Smith and Sette.
Sette later asked Smith why he disobeyed his command and Smith said he had already begun working on the elderly woman.
According to a written statement filed by Menandre Muscadin, a Lake-Sumter Emergency Medical Services paramedic who was at the scene: “I did see him [Sette] yelling and screaming at one of his firefighters and he [Smith] wasn’t happy with his lieutenant either.”
Neither patient was harmed because of the dispute, city officials said.
Smith later filed a written complaint to Lt. Al Anderson, who oversees the Fire Department’s paramedics. According to state statutes, a licensed paramedic oversees care for patients during a medical call.
Anderson and Minneola fire Chief David Dobrzkowski launched an internal investigation into the dispute and later met with Lake-Sumter EMS medical director Dr. Paul Banerjee, who oversees all paramedics in Lake County.
On Wednesday morning, Sette submitted his resignation to Oppelaar and Minneola human-resources manager Paula Carver.
Sette could not be reached for comment. However, he wrote in his resignation letter: “I unequivocally refute the allegations lodged against me.”
“It has now become dreadfully apparent to me that I can no longer work and effectively perform my supervisory duties within the current working environment,” according to the letter.
At 2 p.m., Oppelaar then closed Minneola’s Fire Department for 48 hours to investigate the dispute and why Sette resigned. An hour and a half later, Sette called Carver and rescinded his resignation.
On Thursday, Oppelaar released a statement saying that his investigation was completed.
“The determination was made that some operational and chain-of-command protocols were compromised on [April 11],” according to his statement. “The inquiry is now closed and personnel involved in the events have been appropriately counseled on their duty performance and will receive additional training on emergency medical services protocols and procedures.”
The Fire Department reopened Friday morning.
Oppelaar did not return several calls for comment, and his staff referred all questions to Minneola Mayor David Yeager.
“The Fire Department is dysfunctional,” Yeager said. “We need to make sure that we do service for the citizens of Minneola and that we follow a protocol. There’s no time for controversy among firefighters at the scene. Let’s go help whoever is injured, do your job, save a life and move on.”
But City Council member Sue Cordova disagreed and said Oppelaar should not have closed the Fire Department for a simple investigation.
“There is no dysfunction at the fire station,” Cordova said Friday. “This is a witch hunt to get rid of [Dobrzkowski] and make him look bad.”
Cordova said that at Tuesday’s council meeting, she will ask for an investigation by the board into Oppelaar’s actions.
“The city manager’s side in this is far from being closed,” she said. “I think the city needs to look at how the city manager handled this incident. I think he showed his inexperience as a city manager. I think he showed his inexperience in dealing with the Fire Department. He did not handle this properly.”
The south Lake County city started its own Fire Department in 2005 so it could provide residents with quicker response times than service from Lake County and also have available advanced-life-support services and paramedics when answering medical emergencies.
Copyright 2009 Sentinel Communications Co.