Two EMS workers in Sangamon County, Illinois, have been charged with first-degree murder after authorities accused them of accidentally putting patients prone on stretchers and strapping them to their backs to transport them to the hospital.
LifeStar Ambulance Service employees Peter Caddigan, 50, and Peggy Finley, 44, were confirmed dead on December 18, 2022, when her 35-year-old man was confirmed dead. Accused of causing the death of Earl Moore Jr., a forensic autopsy determined the cause of death to be “asphyxiation due to compression and position from lying prone on a stretcher/ambulance stretcher with straps tightened across the back”. As a result, the death has been ruled a murder.
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No details were provided at a press conference by local authorities about Moore’s medical condition before an ambulance was called, except that emergency services were called to a “medical emergency” at his home. The video appears to have been released by the Sangamon County Government channel, showing police were first called to the house. Police arrived at the house around 2:00 am. A woman came to the door and announced that the man inside was “hallucinating” due to “drunk hallucinations” and was going through alcohol withdrawal after four days without alcohol. She told officers that the man himself had called police “for no reason” and believed he needed help because he “sees things that aren’t there” and “hears voices in his head”.
When police entered the room, a man identified as Earl lay on the bed, initially unable to adequately answer the officers, instead repeating his speech over and over again. One of the officers says they want an ambulance to check him out.