According to disturbing new reporting from NPR Illinois, with additional coverage from People Magazine, two IL paramedics who were called out to save a man’s life in a middle-of-the-night emergency are now jailed and charged with first-degree murder in a deeply unsettling twist, after the man reportedly died of suffocation after the two EMS workers strapped him face down against a gurney.
Illinois paramedics, 50-year-old Peter Cadigan and 40-year-old Peggy Finley, have been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the December 18th death of 35-year-old Earl L. Moore Jr., of Springfield, Ill. According to local NPR, the charges were officially announced by Sangamon County State’s Attorney Dan Wright on January 10th.
The paramedics were employees of Lifestar EMS and responded to a 911 call out to Moore’s residence just after 2 a.m. on the 18th of December. A press release from the Springfield Police Department claimed that officers reported Moore was possibly suffering from hallucinations stemming from alcohol withdrawal and required immediate emergency medical attention.
Upon their arrival, Cadigan and Finley placed Moore on the stretcher lying flat on his stomach and proceeded to confine the patient to the gurney by tightening a medical strap around his back and lower body. This has been corroborated by newly released body cam footage from the paramedics.
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According to authorities, Moore was transported to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.
People Magazine obtained Moore’s coroner’s report following his death that confirmed the 35-year-old’s cause of death was determined as “compressional and positional asphyxia, due to prone face-down restraint on a paramedic transportation stretcher due to straps across the back.
County Attorney Dan Wright spoke with Fox News and said the paramedics should have known from their training and experience in the field that positioning and restraining a patient in such a way that they did Moore “would create a substantial probability of great bodily harm or death.”
Currently, the employment status of the two IL paramedics remains unknown. Lifestar Ambulance Service spoke with People and stated, “It’s still under investigation so we’re not allowed to talk about it.”
Multiple reports have confirmed that Cadigan and Finley are currently lodged in the Sangamon County Jail and it is not immediately clear whether the pair has retained attorneys or entered any pleas to their charges.
Featured image via Sangamon County Jail
