The mother of a Tampa, Florida woman who died says she had to rush her daughter to the hospital after paramedics allegedly told her that she couldn’t afford insurance, ABC Action News reports.
Nicole Black discovered her daughter, Crystle Galloway, who just had her son via C-section a few days before her death, slumped over the bathtub in her apartment.
Black said she called 911 and told the dispatcher that her something was wrong with her daughter but that she was still breathing.
She said when the paramedics finally arrived they told her that her Galloway appeared to have suffered a stroke and then told her she couldn’t afford the ride, she feels that she was discriminated against, according to ABC Action News.
“The whole conversation as the EMS drivers put my child in my car was that was best for us because we couldn’t afford an ambulance,” she said, according to ABC Action News. “My daughter begged for her life, she begged!”
The Hillsborough County Administrator Mike Merrill said that the four medics did not do their jobs properly, per ABC Action News.
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the paramedics never got Black to sign the required informed consent form and said that patient could not be found in their logging system, which Merrill says was a falsification of records.
“I cannot trust these individuals to work under my medical license,” Merrill said in a statement to the Tampa Bay Times. “I feel they do not meet the minimum standards set by myself and the department.”
The county has suspended the four medics, identified by the Tampa Bay Times as Lt. John “Mike” Morris, 36, Fire Medic Justin Sweeney, 36, Fire Medic Andrew J. Martin, 28, and acting Lt. Cortney Barton, 38.
A disciplinary hearing is scheduled for July 31, per Tampa Bay Times.
Black said that her daughter was in a coma for days before she passed away.
“She’s 30 years old and just graduated from college, she had her whole life ahead of her,” Black said about her daughter to “You can tell me you’re sorry, you can give me your condolences but you still have to work this out with God.”
