If you’re like most Indiana residents then you’ve probably worried about what would happen to you and your job if you were to suddenly be diagnosed with a serious disease. Question like “will I be fired if I miss work?” and “what happens if my illness disables me?” probably run through your head with no comforting answers with which to pair them.
On that same thought, what happens if a medical condition leads to your termination but you’re not aware you have the condition until after you’ve been fired? What can you do then? A recent case out of Florida raises questions like these, even forcing us to reconsider illnesses and they can be linked to wrongful termination.
The 51-year-old Florida man had served as a 911 dispatcher for ten years without any incident unitl recently this month when he claims that an undiagnosed brain tumor led to his failure to send immediate help to a dying man. Despite having received the call and entering it into the system as a priority, dispatch logs show that he didn’t send paramedics until nearly 14 minutes later. But by then it was too late and this man later died as a result.
“I’m not a monster who sat behind the radio and intentionally let somebody else die,” he explained to reporters after his story was picked up by the local media. But the city disagreed and fired him from his job. It wasn’t until after is suspesion that he was diagnosed with a brain tumor; a diagnosis, he says, that could explain is mental lapse.
Although a hearing had been scheduled for May 7 to hear his appeal, it has since been postponed to allow his attorney a little more time to prepare evidence to support hjis client’s claims of wrongful termination. A new date does not appear to have been set at this time.
Source: ABC News, “911 Dispatcher Says Brain Tumor Caused His Mistake,” Sydney Lupkin, May 9, 2013
