BOSTON (WHDH) - Boston EMS officials say attacks on paramedics in the city have surged since last year as police investigation two separate assaults on members of their own in as many days — and Mayor Martin J. Walsh says it needs to stop.
“They have a difficult job because they’re going through the most difficult situations,” Walsh said. “They get called to everything and they have to deal with it, so hopefully this is not a trend we continue to see.”
Boston EMS Chief James Hooley says his department has already dealt with 31 assault incidents in 2019, up from 19 in all of last year.
A 37-year-old woman is facing assault charges after police say she violently attacked an EMS captain in Boston just one day after two other EMTs found themselves in a life-and-death struggle with a psychiatric patient.
Troopers conducting a traffic stop on Preble Circle in Southie about 4:25 p.m. Thursday heard a man yelling “get back” and spotted a woman, later identified as Donna A. Taylor, of Boston, trying to push past a Boston EMS captain so she could enter 313 Old Colony Ave. as paramedics were working to render aid to a woman who had been found unresponsive inside, according to state police.
Surveillance footage of the incident shows the captain pushing Taylor out of a pizza shop where he responded to a medical call for an unconscious person.
State police say she hit the supervisor on the head as he tried to help someone suspected of overdosing.
EMS officials say the captain was trying to keep Taylor away from the patient so medical care could continue.
Two state troopers nearby saw the struggle and in result there Taylor to the ground and handcuffed her.
On Wednesday, police say a psychiatric patient stabbed an EMT and pepper sprayed another as they were transporting her to the hospital.
Just one station captured the moment the patient, now suspect, was arrested.
The EMT who was stabbed several times has since been released from the hospital.
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