By Elizabethe Holland
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
OVERLAND, Mo. — In a surprising turnabout Wednesday, the Community Fire Protection District board reinstated a severely burned firefighter-paramedic it had terminated two months before.
The board’s directors voted unanimously to rehire Cindy Schuenke and to give her more than two months of lost back pay and benefits, according to the board’s attorney, Neil Bruntrager.
The decision came in the wake of an Aug. 26 grievance hearing called to address Schuenke’s termination in early July.
Schuenke suffered severe burns March 29, 2006, while searching for the mother of a fellow firefighter in a burning house in Vinita Terrace. Since the fire, Schuenke has had multiple surgeries but has stressed her desire to return to work as a firefighter-paramedic.
In early July, however, she learned she’d been fired in a letter from Fire Chief Fred Cain.
She was let go despite a letter in June from her surgeon stating that he couldn’t yet rule out the possibility of her returning to work.
Reached late Wednesday, Schuenke said she had just learned of her reinstatement and had not yet received any documents detailing her rehiring. “I’m excited that the board has changed its mind, but I’m mentally drained from all of this,” she said. “Part of me died in the fire ... but now it’s on the upswing.”
Schuenke said she has been encouraged the past two weeks by numerous calls, letters and blog postings from supporters who expressed outrage at the board’s decision. She said she also is grateful to Firefighters Local 2665, which she said recently stepped in to help fight for her job.
Bruntrager said the directors hope their decision “helps in the healing process.”
“What the board considered most of all was the impact of the decision (on Schuenke) personally,” he said. “The last thing in the world they were trying to do was hurt her.”
Had the termination stood, the district’s disability insurance would have provided untaxed payments of up to $4,000 a month, in addition to worker’s comp, Bruntrager said.
Schuenke’s attorney, Mike Schaller, however, has argued that the loss of her job ultimately would strip her of $50,000 of her $84,000 annual salary, and also would leave her without other key benefits, such as health insurance coverage for issues unrelated to the fire.
Copyright 2008, St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)