A state board on Thursday issued a six-month license suspension to a paramedic who admitted she moved a parked ambulance as a practical joke.
Appearing before the state Board of Health, Tawny Long said she was "very, very wrong" for moving the ambulance from where it had been parked at the Southern Paramedic Service ambulance station in Clinton.
She said she moved it across the street, about 70 yards from the station.
"If they had looked around they could have seen it," she said. "This is something that had been done multiple times, including done to me while I was on shift."
Nate Smith, director of the state Department of Health, said he was surprised at her explanation. He noted that "minutes, even seconds matter" when responding to medical emergencies.
"For you to characterize this moving ambulances around and hiding them as common practice, that's just absolutely unacceptable when people's lives are at stake," he said.
Unanimously accepting the recommendation of a three-member committee, the board also ordered Long to be on probation for 12 months after her suspension and to take classes on ethics and legal matters.
Long said she will appeal the punishment to circuit court.
An ambulance service employee said that she woke up about 2 a.m. Aug. 18 and found the vehicle missing, according to a report. An officer found it shortly afterward in a Pizza Hut parking lot, the report said.
The ambulance's disappearance caused a "slight delay" when another one had to be dispatched to a call, Health Department spokesman Meg Mirivel said.
In a written statement to police, Long, 38, of Clinton said she and Samuel Bradway, 23, of Greenbrier initially planned to "turn on everything" in the vehicle as a joke. Once they opened the door and saw that the key had been left inside, they decided to "move it out of sight," Long said in the statement.
After moving it, they noticed that a camera in the vehicle had been recording and removed it, she said in the statement.
Long and Bradway gave the statements after surrendering, Mirivel said.
Long and Bradway pleaded guilty in Van Buren County District Court to charges of second-degree criminal mischief, a misdemeanor, and were each fined $720.
Bradway, an emergency medical technician, agreed to surrender his license for six months, Mirivel said.
The episode happened about two months after Long quit her job at Southern Paramedic and started working at Liberty EMS Service in Perry County.
Larry Thompson, a partner at Liberty EMS, asked the board for a more lenient punishment, saying he's already short of paramedics.
"She's been very remorseful," Thompson said. "I don't think you can beat her up more than she's beat herself up."
Metro on 04/27/2018