Tom Wilemon

twilemon@tennessean.com

The Nashville Fire Department and Vanderbilt University Medical Center declined to identify the people involved in the decision not to transport Antonio Foster to the hospital for care, but defended their actions.

Three paramedics and five firefighters were placed on administrative leave after Foster’s death. The emergency responders went to his home in Hermitage early Wednesday after receiving a 3 a.m. report that he had shot himself in the head.

They did not take the 32-year-old man to the hospital because he had “injuries not compatible with life,” according to police records. The paramedics later returned after his roommate called to report he was still breathing.

Foster died at 1:51 p.m Wednesday, about 11 hours after the gunshot incident was reported.

Dr. Corey Slovis, medical director of the Nashville Fire Department, added wording to the definition of a trauma death in the official protocols for emergency responders that he said would be emailed to them on Friday. The additional wording said a patient must be “pulseless, without respirations, without movement and without signs of life” before a determination of “trauma arrest” is made.

“Everyone involved was a good person trying to do the right thing,” Slovis said. “I realize that the right thing ultimately was not done.”

Mike Franklin, Nashville Fire Department’s deputy director for day-to-day operations, said in an email the names of the employees would not be released while the inquiry is still ongoing and active, but they would once that inquiry is completed.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center also is not releasing the name of any personnel involved in the decision-making with firefighters to leave Foster the first time.

“Today, after an internal review of the event involving Vanderbilt’s Adult Emergency Department and Metro Nashville Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services professionals operating in the field, we believe the MNFD emergency medical professionals on scene acted appropriately and responsibly in caring for this individual,” said John Howser, a spokesman for the hospital.

“The responsibility for decisions surrounding patient care in this event resides with Vanderbilt. The physiologic circumstances surrounding this patient’s unusual and unsurvivable injury provide the opportunity for further refinement of protocols used collaboratively by physicians at Vanderbilt and EMS personnel working in the field as they care for and transport dying patients. We will partner with our colleagues in the MNFD on this effort.”

Reach Tom Wilemon at 615-726-5961 and on Twitter @TomWilemon.