Four first responders have been suspended after a woman who was pronounced dead from a suspected overdose was actually alive.
Springfield Township Fire Chief Barry Cousino, Deputy Fire Chief David Moore, along with two paramedics, Aiden Yoon and Bill Fordyce, have been placed on administrative leave.
The decision was made after several first responders from Springfield Township and Toledo mistakenly declared a woman dead inside an Ohio home and said “it’s okay, that’s enough for me” while making the call at the scene.
They then called a medical examiner, who arrived at the scene and found the woman breathing.
Arielle Diaz, 31, was found by paramedics “lying on the couch unresponsive” with a “blue/grayish” skin color on Jan. 2 when they decided she was dead.
Four first responders have been suspended after a woman who was pronounced dead from a suspected overdose was actually alive.
Springfield Township Fire Chief Barry Cousino (left) and Deputy Fire Chief David Moore (right) have been placed on administrative leave.
Two paramedics, Aiden Yoon (left) and Bill Fordyce (right), were also placed on administrative leave.
The emergency response came after a neighbor called 911 when he heard a dog barking repeatedly and went to check the property, only to find the woman unconscious.
Emergency medical teams were already at the scene, but requested the help of the canine warden to remove the animal.
A “large, aggressive pit bull dog” was reportedly at the woman’s side “not wanting to move,” complicating first responders’ efforts to treat her, they said.
While police worked to get the dog out of bed using food and other tactics, no one had checked on the woman.
From a distance, first responders noticed that Diaz’s fingers and the area around his mouth were blue.
After the dog warden finally forced the dog off the property, EMS returned to the home and made a decision on the woman just two minutes after the dog left, citing “code 18,” Police jargon for finding someone dead.
After meeting outside to discuss Diaz’s condition, the paramedic declared to the doctor over the phone that “it is dependent lividity.”
The doctor responded ‘you see some type of lividity’, to which they responded ‘you don’t notice rigor but dependent lividity’.
The coroner arrived at 9:45 a.m., more than an hour after Diaz was pronounced dead. At 9:57 am, the coroner noted that she was exhaling, that her abdomen felt warm, and that her legs and feet were flexible.
Diaz was given a mask to help her breathe and received three doses of Narcan, after which she “perked up.”
The decision was made after several first responders from Springfield Township and Toledo mistakenly declared a woman dead inside an Ohio home and said “it’s okay, that’s enough for me” while making the call at the scene.
Arielle Diaz, 31, was found by paramedics “lying unconscious on the couch” with a “blue/grayish” skin color on Jan. 2 when they decided she was dead.
Springfield Township is promising an internal investigation into the response and said it “shouldn’t have happened.”
Springfield Township is promising an internal investigation into the response and said it “shouldn’t have happened.”
‘The situation is tragic. It shouldn’t have happened, and we’re very sorry that it happened,” Town Manager Michael Hampton said, according to WTOL. “Our internal investigation will certainly get to the bottom of what happened and we will provide the public with as much transparency as is legally possible.”
Barry Cousino and David Moore were not on site when the incident occurred, they are being evaluated for how they handled the situation in the following days and their obligation to report what happened to township employees.
The township board of directors first learned of the incident on Monday.