By Melinda J. Overstreet
Glasgow Daily Times
GLASGOW, Ky. — The employment of an emergency medical technician who was involved in an alleged road rage incident last month has been terminated, according to his boss.
Mike Swift, director of the Barren-Metcalfe Emergency Medical Service, said he spoke with Jonathan Hughes on Thursday evening.
Earlier this week, Swift told the personnel committee of the ambulance service’s board of directors of the April 24 incident, that began with several reported incidents of aggressive driving by Hughes and another driver as they were eastbound on Ky. 90 just before the Glasgow Municipal Airport. It ended with Hughes and the passenger in the other vehicle both displaying guns outside the EMS substation on Airport Road, where Hughes worked, according to a Glasgow Police Department report. No one was injured in the incident and no charges were filed.
GPD got the first of multiple calls about the situation at 6:40 a.m., according to the report. Swift said Hughes was due at work at 7 a.m.
After the personnel committee met, the matter was forwarded to the full board, for which a special meeting was scheduled Wednesday. Seven of the 10 board members were there, and after they emerged from closed session, Chairman Howard Garrett announced that the board would let management handle the issue.
On Friday, after Hughes had been told of his firing, Swift told the Daily Times the vote came to 4-3 in favor of termination, and he agreed with that majority.
“I hate it, but you just can’t do that. It never should have gotten that far,” Swift said. “It did put two other employees’ lives in danger plus three others’ from Air Methods [based at the same substation], because if they had heard the commotion and come out, they could have been shot, too.”
Swift is aware of no complaints about Hughes’ ambulance driving, and also checked with Tim Gibson, assistant director of the service, who said the same. Hughes began working for the service in October 2010.
“And then he chose his place of employment to be the place of confrontation, where other people could have been involved that didn’t have anything to do with it,” Swift said. “I think that was the deciding factor. … What he should have done was pull off on the side of the road and let him get far enough ahead to avoid any further interaction.”
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©2015 the Glasgow Daily Times (Glasgow, Ky.)