Lawsuit alleges paramedics refused to help 56-year-old man in cardiac arrest
The Rialto Fire Department was slapped with a $100 million lawsuit after a woman claimed the department's paramedics refused to help her father, leading to his untimely death.
A formal complaint was drafted against the City of Rialto alleging the wrongful death of 56-year-old Joseph Angulo.
Body-cam footage from Rialto police shows Rialto Fire Department paramedics standing around at the life-or-death emergency.
"In my mind, what they did is not right," said the Angulo family's attorney, Bill Shapiro.
On November 17, the 56-year-old suffered cardiac arrest at the Rialto Post Acute Center, but when three paramedics arrived, Shapiro said they refused to go inside, citing some sort of state COVID-19 protocol.
The attorney also said the paramedics continued to ignore the nurses, who begged them to help with life-saving measures. Instead, he said, the paramedics continued to just tell them they needed to bring Angulo outside, but he was in a room at the far side of the clinic, getting chest compressions for 25 minutes, on a bed with no wheels.
It wasn't until a police officer ran into the center to physically help push the bed to the entrance that the paramedics began to tend to Angulo.
"The critical time that comes to play is the time that the paramedics arrived and could have helped, and did not help," Shapiro said.
The 56-year-old died an hour later at the hospital.
Angulo's daughter is now filing the wrongful death lawsuit against the Rialto Fire Department, saying that the paramedics let her father die.
The City of Rialto has since requested an independent investigation of the matter and has placed the fire personnel in question on leave. They added that they are not commenting at this moment.
In the meantime, Shapiro said his team is building a case against the department, adding that almost two years after the pandemic's start, Rialto Fire Department's staff should have had better COVID protocols so that this wouldn't happen.
"They failed to do, really, what their job is."
