A Toxic 911 Call
Nearly half the paramedics in the country are women. And at the largest fire/ambulance company in Texas there are complaints that paramedics who need to breastfeed their child are facing discrimination and retaliation. They aren’t the only first responders asking for our help in exposing A TOXIC 911 CALL.
A Toxic 911 Call
700 thousand people throughout Northwest Harris County depend on these first responders to protect them.
The Paramedics.
The Firefighters…of ESD 9
But now it is some of those very same people we depend on who now have their own emergency.
“I am disgusted with the actions, the half truths, and blatant lies perpetuated by our chief and her executive staff,” Jonathan Hedblom said.
“We are investigating widespread complaints of possible civil rights violations at ESD-9,” Wayne Dolcefino told the camera.
“Retaliation, intimidation, violation of labor laws. And it needs to stop,” Hedblom said.
Even alleged discrimination against female first responders who simply need a private place to breastfeed after the birth of their children.
I’m not kidding…
“I have never been a person that experiences anxiety. This has brought me to my knees,” Ashley Fitzhenry said.
We expose complaints ESD 9 is a toxic workplace.
“You’re destroying people’s lives for your own benefit instead of being a decent human being,” Joy McDonald said.
And has tried to cover it up for years.
“It’s just not fair. At first I was so depressed about it that I was just like, what can I do? I’m 63 years old,” Jerry “Bubba” Justice said.
Their 9-1-1 call? To Dolcefino Media.
We’ve battled for first responders before and the last three numbers of our company phone number… 911.
“Every year, the Texas Fire Chiefs Association chooses a Fire Chief of the Year award. This year, it was our very own Chief Amy Ramon, from the Cy Fair Fire Department.”
Chief Amy Ramon was the first woman to win the Texas Fire Chief Award.
She’s in charge of the largest emergency service district in the entire state of Texas.
A 100-million dollar budget, 13 fire stations protecting 164 square miles of Harris County.
“But the chief could make history again if she ends up getting fired for what she’s accused of doing,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“The Cy-Fair fire chief’s job is on the line. But nobody seems to know why.”
“The folks who work for Chief Ramon know exactly why she is in some trouble. And as always, taxpayers have been kept in the dark… until now,” Dolcefino told the camera.
You have a right to know because a lawsuit may be coming that could cost you upwards of ten million dollars.
“Everybody says, oh she’s Fire Chief of the Year from last year, and they’re stuck on that. Because they’re so good at silencing everybody,” McDonald said.
Accused of silencing the first responders who complain, while hiding the complaints from the elected commissioners of ESD-9.
Last May, the fire chief told commissioners there was nothing to see here.
“I have not had a report on the Ombudsman website since I believe 2020,” Amy Ramon said.
“But in August the ESD commissioners found out that could have been a flat-out lie. Just how many investigations have been going on at the Emergency Service District?” Dolcefino told the camera.
“Since the ESD has become a provider, how many investigations have we done, whether it came through the Ombudsman or H.R.?” Naressa McKinnon said.
“45” Clements said.
“45 investigations,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“Those 45 investigations is over what period of time are they in process?” Paiva said.
“From ’21 to ‘25” Clements said.
“And that might help explain why the ESD has such a big legal bill, a million dollars last year. Look, I’ve investigated a lot of ESDs and there is one constant: the lawyers—they are getting rich,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Meet Ashley Fitzhenry and her 9-month-old daughter Keaux.
“I’m an advanced EMT currently. I started the department in 2008 as a volunteer firefighter,” Fitzhenry said.
When she got back from maternity leave she told the ESD she needed a private place to pump breast milk.
“I had to sign something that said that I would abide by their rules and that they would abide by my federal law, and they did not do that,” Fitzhenry said.
Federal law says a lactation room is to be free from view and free from intrusion, private and lockable.
“Some of the fire stations weren’t doing that, and Ashley told us she often had to pump breastmilk while sitting in her car or in a fire truck,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Last March Ashley says she asked for a private, lockable room here at Fire Station Three…
But the locks weren’t installed until two months later and then for some reason, we don’t know, they were removed the very next day. You could predict what happened next.
“And they knocked on the door and immediately opened it while I was pumping and retreated. They didn’t wait for me to say ‘come in,’ they didn’t say anything to me,” Fitzhenry said.
What happened to Ashley has now become some kind of joke within the 500-member department.
“Everybody’s talking about it. They have a nickname, Booby Gate, Titty Gate. I was told the other day that I should take a mold of my breasts with me pumping and put it at Station Three and say ‘Home of the Booby Gate,’” Fitzhenry said.
Joy McDonald is a paramedic who is 5 months pregnant, and she’s also suffered, she says.
A fellow paramedic was insulting women’s need for a special room to pump breast milk in the first place.
“He was fixated on the lactation rooms and said, ‘Oh, it’s okay for me to go in the lactation rooms and jack off to get a sperm sample. That is basically the same thing, right?’” McDonald said
Joy had another problem… the ESD allegedly forced her to work directly under her ex-husband, a guy she claimed had been physically abusive to her.
That was a bright idea.
Joy was recently fired.
Ashley and Joy have filed formal complaints and legal demands now that include charges of pregnancy discrimination and retaliation.
“Like, I don’t know what this vendetta is against pregnant women or women that are breastfeeding. It’s not a big deal to have an area for these women to pump. I don’t understand it,” McDonald said.
“It’s sexualized… when it shouldn’t be. It drops my supply. So I had a hard time feeding her,” Fitzhenry said.
“As it stands, we have a dedicated lactation room in every single one of our stations now, with signs that are ordered,” Naressa MacKinnon said.
We went to Cy-Fair’s Fire Station Five. After Ashley told us there’s no lactation room there.
Still, their PR guy showed us a place.
“This is a lactation room?” Andrea Palacio asked.
“Yes, these are officers’ quarters, which are also used as lactation rooms,” Eddie Cruz said.
“A paramedic sued the City of Tucson for violating her rights on the job.”
The Tucson Fire Department paid out nearly 4 million dollars to a paramedic with the very same kind of complaint that Ashley has.
Today about 42% of all paramedics are women.
Former ESD-9 commissioner Kevin Stertzel resigned in April of this year and worries the fire chief could end up costing the district, and taxpayers, millions of dollars.
“This boils down to an incompetent HR function. An incompetent fire chief unable to recognize that she has an incompetent HR function. These gross violations of federal labor law were preventable,” Kevin Stertzel said.
Attorney Lynne Jurek now represents 6 present and former ESD-9 employees.
“They’re not even following their own guidelines or policies or procedures,” Lynne Jurek.
Bubba Justice was an EMS supervisor for Cy-Fair.
With the department 21 years. He says his undoing was calling a supervisor for a second opinion on a medical call.
Command staff put him through multiple training tests until he failed one.
“They actually demoted me three levels, which nobody’s ever been demoted three levels at the fire department before,” Jerry “Bubba Justice said.
Bubba says ESD-9 is hiding secrets about patient care.
“Unfortunately, we’ve had people that have done wrong procedures, wrong medication, not done what the right thing to do was. We’ve actually had people die. It’s not fair to our department. Nobody’s ever been demoted for it like I have. And mine was a training, and I didn’t hurt a single person,” Bubba said.
Lieutenant Jonathan Hedblom ran the ESD-9 team assigned to the State Mutual Aid System. He says ESD-9 removed him as team leader after he complained.
“When you challenge certain people on the command staff, the retaliation is real,” Hedblom said.
After he hired a lawyer, Jonathan says he was retaliated against by Chief Ramon.
“At night, the fire chief sent a mass email out to the entire fire department, naming me and several other members as having retained legal counsel against the fire department,” Hedblom said.
“It’s illegal to share. And they did that to three of my claimants,” Lynn said.
“I think any judge in the land would say that that was a retaliatory act towards the person. It made it obvious who the claimant was,” Kevin Stertzel said.
But ESD president defends the fire chief, who was also an attorney.
“Definitely not best practice. I can see where her lawyer’s mind would be, everyone needs to save whatever could be relevant to this,” Naressa MacKinnon said.
When deadly floods ravaged Central Texas this year, we are told the ESD command staff sent no one to help. Earlier this year the ESD-9 board hired an outside law firm to investigate these and other employee complaints.
“We had to pass a motion to order the department and the command to cooperate with the investigations. They had not been cooperating,” Rob Paiva said.
The ESD president defends the command staff.
“They give all their information to their lawyer, and their lawyer was looking through it, holding on to it,” MacKinnon said.
“The only way they’re going to withdraw their claims against the very people who are the problem is if the board takes action and effects change, particularly with the fire chief,” Stertzel said.
“And I fear that the taxpayers and the rank and file are the ones that are gonna suffer the most if due and right action isn’t taken and taken soon,” Paiva said.
“She has had no issues up until this point, and I’m not even sure that these are her issues, or that she was aware of any of them,” MacKinnon said.
“We asked Chief Ramon for an interview on camera and she told us to call her lawyer. We did. He never called us back,” Dolcefino told the camera
“The fish is rotten from the head down. And until a couple of them are removed, nothing’s going to change,” Lanessa Wallace said.
Paramedic Lanessa Wallace has been teaching required certification classes at the ESD 9, and she claims the department is forging required documents for the command staff.
“The entire command staff, I guarantee you, has not attended a class in at least the last three years that I’ve been teaching,” Wallace said.
“But a former ESD-9 commissioner is warning you that all these employee problems at ESD-9 could affect your safety,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“If you’re in fear of your job and if you are in fear of retaliation, and retaliation takes many forms, it certainly could impact your focus and also your, you know, the performance of your duties,” Stertzel said.
“Do they understand that your people are your most valuable asset? It’s not the million-dollar fire trucks that you buy us. It’s the incalculable value of each member of your organization,” Hedblom said.
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