Mayor Richard Daley and his City Hall staff moved quickly on Tuesday to quash a mounting controversy over a paramedic who Chicago fire officials say was drunk when he crashed an ambulance into a school bus.
While the mayor spoke cautiously about the incident, which occurred on May 5 and was disclosed in Tuesday’s Tribune, City Hall sources said Daley has ordered his law department to research ways to fire 30-year-old paramedic John W. Walsh.
Specifically, city attorneys are trying to determine whether the fire department’s “second-chance” policy applies to Walsh, who failed a sobriety test at the Fire Academy a short time after the accident.
The policy, which was instituted in the mid-1980s, gives another chance to firefighters and paramedics who are caught drinking or taking drugs on the job. It provides that employees who violate the department’s alcohol or drug rules be given one year’s probation, during which they must submit to random drug and alcohol tests.
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The employee is automatically fired if caught drinking or taking drugs for the remainder of his or her career, officials said.
But City Hall sources noted that the policy was intended to help employees battle drug and alcohol problems, not to help them skirt criminal charges. As a result, city attorneys are trying to determine if Walsh can be fired for violating other laws related to the crash, such as criminal damage to property.
At an unrelated event on Tuesday, Daley suggested that the second-chance policy may not apply to a drunken driver involved in an accident.
“I don’t want to get too particular with this case,” the mayor said. “But in any case where someone is committing an illegal act that could jeopardize themselves or anyone else, it’s an illegal act. It doesn’t matter what’s happening; that’s an illegal act.”
The fire department issued a one-paragraph statement on Tuesday that reads, in part: “The department has a long-standing binding agreement with the union, that in some cases, provides rehabilitation for first-time violators of the drug and alcohol policy. Whether that binding agreement applies in this incident will not be known until the investigation has been completed.”
Previously, fire officials said it was likely that Walsh, currently suspended with pay, would be able to return to work because of the second-chance policy.
In a related matter, Police Supt. Terry Hillard said the police department was conducting its own investigation into the accident, which occurred about 1:40 p.m. at Wabash Avenue and Garfield Boulevard.
Investigators will try to determine if police officers who responded to the accident acted appropriately by not giving Walsh a field sobriety test. A police spokesman said Monday that there was no evidence at the time to warrant the sobriety test.
“We are having an investigation now, and we’ll have to see,” Hillard said. “I hope a pass wasn’t given.”
The accident occurred as Walsh and his partner were responding to an emergency medical call and driving south on Wabash Avenue. As they approached Garfield, Walsh attempted to veer around a school bus that was stopped at the red light.
The ambulance sideswiped the rear corner of the bus, which was carrying 25 students from the nearby Beasley School, 5255 S. State St. No one was injured and police issued no tickets.
But the damage to the ambulance was bad enough that Walsh was taken to the Fire Academy for a sobriety test, as is routine when fire department vehicles are involved in serious crashes.
Walsh failed the test, but the fire department didn’t forward that information to the police department.