RANDOM TESTS

Paramedics Not Immune

PERSONNEL who hold the lives of others in their hands - police, airline
pilots, haulers of deadly chemicals, etc. - always should be subject to
random drug testing, as a public safety precaution.

Paramedics should be included in this high-risk group. They have a
life-or-death role with injured and stricken people. But it's hard to
understand why some leaders of the Kanawha County Ambulance Authority
oppose drug tests for crews.

Kanawha County Commissioner Kent Carper is pushing the authority to require
random tests of the rescue workers. "This deserves a hard, serious,
open-minded look," he told the board.

But authority member Harry Miller and director Joe Lynch seemed to shrug.
Miller called Carper's plan "a solution before we have a problem." Lynch
said only seven drug or alcohol incidents arose in the past 13 years. He
said the $49 cost of tests is too high.

Well, we agree with Carper. The lives of car wreck and heart attack victims
are too important to be jeopardized by fussing over a $49 lab fee. If the
day ever came - heaven forbid - when a stoned paramedic caused a death or
maiming, vulture lawyers would slap a multimillion-dollar suit on the
negligent ambulance system that didn't screen its crews.

As Carper says, the tests could be merely random. The vast majority of the
county's 210 emergency workers who never touch dope would have nothing to
fear - and the chance of being tested would have a sobering effect on any
exceptions.

Ambulance crews are in the lifesaving business - and drug tests are a
lifesaving safeguard.