"EMTs Gone Wild" Videotape Causes Stir

Last week, it was announced that two emergency medical technicians had resigned because they had filmed patients on the job. The FDNY did not reveal what was on the tapes, only calling them "inappropriate," but now the Post has the details.

- A shocking sequence in which a prostitute bares her breasts.
- A nasty prank in which a medic taps a drunk on the shoulder before he tips over.
- A mean-spirited verbal poke at a homeless woman frequently picked up for public drunkenness.
- A medic - one of the amateur filmmakers - asleep in the cab of the ambulance in broad daylight. He's then shaken awake by the other medic as a supervisor approaches.
- An intoxicated couple in their home filmed during an emergency call.

The duo, David Campbell and Kevin Edell who made the tape when they covered Coney Island, also made fun of different neighborhoods (they called it the "armpit" of Brooklyn) and the FDNY.

Someone had mailed the tapes to FDNY Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, EMS Chief John Peruggia, and other officials. Campbell and Edell were summoned and, after consulting with a union lawyer, decided to resign. The EMTs will not get their pensions and may also lose their state certification. The Post reports that rules require them to "at all times maintain the confidentiality of information about the names, treatment and conditions of patients." A fellow EMT said, "You've got to be a dumb ass to do something like this. They violated the public trust and humiliated the people who rely on us to protect and serve them. It's absolutely awful."

The NY Sun has a weekly series of articles, EMT Diary, by EMT Eugenia Klopsis. And the 1999 Martin Scorsese film Bringing Out The Dead starring Nicolas Cage is about a weary EMT in Hell's Kitchen.