The two EMS workers accused of killing a man in their charge in Springfield, Ill., who died last month after being transported strapped firmly upside down on a stretcher have pleaded not guilty.
Peter J. Cadigan, 50, and Peggy J. Finley, 44, were charged with murder on January 9 in the December 18 death of Earl Moore, Jr., 35. They appeared in court on Friday afternoon, according to NBC. affiliate MAGIC WAND from Decatur, Ill.
Police had called an ambulance to a house where Moore was in medical trouble. A person at the home told officers that he was suffering from alcohol withdrawal and hallucinations, police said.
Moore died shortly after EMS workers placed him on a gurney in a prone position with straps tightened across his back and lower body, Sangamon County State’s Attorney Dan Wright said.
Moore died of compression and position asphyxia «due to prone prone immobilization on a paramedic transport cot/stretcher with straps tightened across her back» and her death was ruled a homicide, the county coroner concluded.
The duo appeared in Sangamon County Circuit Court for a preliminary hearing on Friday morning.
Both were being held at the Sangamon County Jail on $1 million bond each.
Wright said they face 20 to 60 years in prison if convicted. It was not immediately clear if they have lawyers.
Moore’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Thursday against Cadigan and Finley and the ambulance company they worked for, LifeStar Ambulance Services.
They are represented by prominent civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who said this case is «unlike anything we’ve seen in the United States.»
Police had released footage from the officer’s body camera of the incident showing EMS workers offering no assistance in helping Moore, who was unable to walk, reach the stretcher. Once police officers helped him out, footage showed Cadigan and Finley placing him face down.
«When you look at that video, they offer no humanity to Earl Moore Jr. And that’s why this case is so unique,» Crump said at a news conference Thursday. «That’s why people across the United States are shocked that they would treat a disabled man the way they did.»