Paramedics

Shots were fired at Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics early this morning as they entered the courtyard of a large apartment complex in Crenshaw on an emergency call, authorities said. No one was injured and officials have not identified a suspect, said Sgt. Ed Clark with the Los Angeles Police Department's Southwest Division. About 2 a.m., Fire Department paramedics responded to a 911 call from the apartment complex in the 4100 block of Palmwood Drive, Clark said. When the paramedics arrived, someone "fired numerous rounds in their direction," he said.

A Mustang broadsided Kathy Schroeder's Hyundai sports coupe in a Palmdale intersection, knocking her unconscious. She woke up wedged against the console, covered with an oily film. "I just remember my eyes and face burning," she said, "like bacon sizzling." She recalled telling the Los Angeles County Fire Department rescuers at the scene, but said they didn't flush her eyes. After being rolled into a private ambulance, she told the attendants too.

State regulators have launched investigations of three cases in which ambulance and fire department rescuers in Los Angeles and Orange counties allegedly failed to provide proper patient care, a top official said. The incidents were highlighted in a Times investigation published this month that disclosed breakdowns in oversight of the state's 85,000 medical rescuers.

Los Angeles fire officials have launched an effort to improve patient care among medics and boost compliance with state laws requiring that serious problems be reported to regulators. In a memo last week to the department's 104 firehouses, Battalion Chief Daniel R. McCarthy alerted employees that the department has an obligation to report certain problems to regional and state authorities for investigation and possible discipline.

Stretched thin by an increase in calls, Los Angeles firefighters and paramedics would get some reinforcements under the budget the fire chief proposed Tuesday. The budget submitted to the Fire Commission for the fiscal year beginning July 1 would provide for hiring 250 firefighters to cover expected attrition and would expand the workforce by 30. The department has 3,562 firefighters and paramedics.

Hiring civilians to replace most firefighters at the Los Angeles Fire Department's dispatch center would save $2 million to $4 million a year, according to an audit released by City Controller Laura Chick. Currently, the department's 75 dispatchers are required to have four years of experience as firefighters or paramedics. Chick recommends redeploying 62 of them to the field. Her audit also recommends redeploying 18 additional firefighters who are assigned to special duty.

Paramedics on Monday began transporting suspected stroke victims in Los Angeles County to the nearest certified stroke center, a change that officials hope will save lives and brings L.A. into line with other urban counties in the state. The policy shift will route patients to 10 hospitals, including one in Orange County, that have a specialized stroke neurologist available at all times. Those facilities can run blood tests and brain scans, as well as offer rehabilitation services, said Dr.

Re "Oversight of paramedics in state haphazard," a Times investigation, May 6. As a volunteer emergency medical technician for 17 years and a commissioner on the L.A. County Emergency Medical Services Commission, I'm trying to understand the problem's severity. The paramedics with whom I've interacted over the years have been professional and supremely dedicated. I would put my life and those I love in their care without a moment's hesitation. Another level of bureaucracy will not save a choking or heart-attack victim any better.

More than 300 passengers arriving from Japan on Sunday were held on board the jumbo jet at Los Angeles International Airport for a short time while paramedics determined that a passenger did not have a contagious illness. United Airlines Flight 890 informed ground crews shortly before touching down at 8:30 a.m. that a 28-year-old man aboard the aircraft was sick and might have some sort of virus, said Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Cecil Manresa. Los Angeles city paramedics and personnel from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention boarded the Boeing 747 after it landed.

The victim of an execution-style gang shooting in Hyde Park was dead when paramedics declared him beyond resuscitation and covered him with a sheet, and any movement after that was involuntary, fire officials said Thursday. An angry crowd had demanded after the Wednesday night shooting that paramedics remove the sheet and attempt to revive Nahun Beaird, 21, after onlookers said they saw him move.