MILTON, GA (CBS ATLANTA) -
Milton Police Chief Deborah Harrell said an officer who canceled an ambulance before a shooting victim was pronounced dead did nothing wrong.
When asked if the officer should have done it, Harrell said no.
"No. That officer probably should never had canceled the ambulance," Harrell said.
The call happened Sunday afternoon when police said Eric Brandon shot and killed his stepson, 16-year-old Alex Koser, at his home. Seven minutes after the unknown officer canceled the ambulance, dispatch got another call reversing the ambulance cancellation.
The voice on the radio said "Get me rural metro unit here ASAP. We still have a heart beat."
Despite what is clearly said on the recordings, Milton Fire Chief Robert Edgar said the call to dispatch wasn't accurate.
"He had no pulse. The patient had a cardiac rhythm and what we did is try and treat that rhythm. That PEA is normally caused by several things, one of them is blood loss and this patient had blood loss so we did everything within that protocol to treat that patient," Edgar said.
When asked if Koser would have survived if the ambulance hadn't been canceled, Edgar also said no.
"There would have been no change in the outcome of the patient," he said.
Although Harrell said her officer jumped the gun in canceling the ambulance, she said he did not violate any rules.
"We do not have any protocol that says an officer should not cancel a resource. He did not violate any protocol. I would be very uncomfortable making a blanket rule saying an officer can't cancel a resource," Harrell said.
Copyright 2012 WGCL-TV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.
All content ©Copyright 2000 - 2012,WGCL-TV, CBS Atlanta. (A Meredith Corporation Station) and WorldNow. All rights reserved.
