Crime & Safety

Homeowner Attacks EMT Searching for Elderly Patient

A Montgomery County EMT was assaulted by a homeowner who didn't realize an elderly family member had called for help in the middle of the night.

When an elderly Montgomery County woman activated her personal emergency device to call for an ambulance, she didn’t tell her sleeping family members.

The ensuing confusion as emergency responders entered the house about 1 a.m. Saturday resulted in one emergency medical technician being assaulted by the homeowner, who presumed the EMT was a burglar, according to Division Chief Scott Goldstein of the Montgomery Co. Fire Rescue Department.

The encounter happened at a home on Darby Road in the Bradley Hills Grove neighborhood, reports Fox 5 TV.

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The patient, who is reportedly over 100 years old, activated her alarm, and the company told firefighters how to enter the house through the front door. But that set off the home's burglar alarm, the TV station says.

Sleeping family members on the second floor of the large house were unaware the elderly woman had called for help. Firefighters and EMTs fanned out inside the house to find the patient when a female EMT searching the second floor of the large home came across the homeowner and a fight began.

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The EMT suffered minor should and back injuries before the homeowner could be convinced she was trying to find a patient in distress. The EMT was treated and released from a local hospital.

The elderly patient was located in a lower part of the house, and taken by ambulance to a local hospital, where she remains.

Police were called when the fight broke out between the homeowner and the EMT, but no charges were filed.


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