1979 was a year of many life changing events from the Iranian Hostage Crisis to Michael Jackson releasing his first breakthrough album (Pearson). It was also a year where a lesser-known man by the name of Jerry Wright died due to negligence from the very people that were supposed to embody professionalism and empathy (Wright v. City of Los Angeles). The incidents leading up to Jerry Wright's death are incredibly tragic. Eyewitness statements describe him being brutally beaten and thrown up against a car while being robbed. Wright v. City of Los Angeles. Upon police arrival they found him in the driver seat of a vehicle when the officers gave him commands to move and they realized he “was unable to move freely and had difficulty speaking - at …show more content…
City of Los Angeles). Even if pain had been the only complaint, it was still the duty of Paramedic Maloney to provide some form of pain relief either by repositioning the patient, providing pain meds, or taking him to a higher level of care where his pain could be treated appropriately. This lack of precaution results in Jerry Wright dying on scene as a result of the beating and the sickle cell crisis brought on by it (Wright v. City of Los Angeles).The ramifications of Paramedic Maloney's mistake and mistreatment of Jerry Wright has echoed over the last four decades of EMS, influencing and impacting how we write protocols and treat patients. Sadly, the trial notes never answer the question as to why Paramedic Maloney failed to provide adequate medical care and makes me wonder if Paramedic Maloney let his implicit bias (the automatic association people make between groups of people and stereotypes about those groups) influence his patient care (Implicit