Paramedic says he is being punished for giving a cold man a blanket

A Detroit paramedic says he is in trouble for breaking the rules.  His offense?  Giving a cold man a blanket.

Top brass tell us employees must have permission to hand out "department property",  but that blanket was one of many donated to the department to help people in need.

Ladies and gentlemen, this might be the most ridiculous and bone-headed Detroit ambulance story yet.  It started two weeks ago when a house caught on fire.  An old cripple man lived inside.  They brought him outside.  He was in his underwear.  It was cold.  He was shivering.  You give him a blanket, right?  Right.  Then guess what happened?

"I'm being punished.  I'm being punished for giving a man a blanket, something that would seem like a common, every day courtesy.  Something that any man or woman would do in the City of Detroit, give a freezing man a blanket.  I'm being punished for it."

You know what makes this story even more outrageous?  The city didn't even pay for the blankets.  Matt Cahillane, president of Firefighter Support Services, donated them.

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 Detroit Fire Commissioner Don Austin says paramedic Jeff Gaglio is not being punished for giving a man a blanket.

"Paramedic Gaglio was disciplined by the City's EMS division for failing to follow Fire Department reporting policy, not for providing a blanket to a citizen in need," Austin said in a statement Tuesday.  "Paramedic Gaglio properly provided a blanket to a citizen who was burned out of his home on September 18, 2012.  However, Paramedic Gaglio was cited, with an official departmental document, for failing to follow Department policy related to inventory accounting for an ambulance.  Paramedic Gaglio has not and will not be suspended."
 
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