D.C. fire department internal affairs officials are investigating whether firefighters cheated while testing to become nationally certified as emergency medical technicians.
The tests were recommended by a task force that called for all District firefighters to become cross-trained as nationally certified paramedics. The task force was set up as part of a settlement with the family of David Rosenbaum, a retired New York Times reporter who was assaulted in 2006 but was mistakenly assessed as being drunk. He died two days later.
D.C. Fire Chief Dennis Rubin said officials were investigating accusations that members used “outside materials” while taking a computerized National Registry Emergency Medical Technician exam at a training center in La Plata, Md.
Earlier this month, the agency issued a memorandum ordering members who were scheduled to take the national test at the La Plata training center to choose another site, fire department sources said.
“If in fact these allegations are true, the D.C. Fire and EMS Department will be greatly disappointed the NREMT and the [La Plata] training center failed to meet our expectations,” Rubin said.
Kenneth Lyons, president of the union that represents single-role EMTs in the department, said the agency has not contacted him about any of his members cheating. Many firefighters have been taking the test to meet the July 1 deadline set by the D.C. Department of Health, he said.
Lyons said the fire department has not properly prepared the firefighters for the national EMT certification.
“Their jobs are on the line and they are not appropriately prepared,” Lyons said. If the accusations of cheating are true, “The bigger question is, ‘Do we now have individuals who passed the exam by not on their own merits but by cheating?’ ”
Neither the head of the firefighter union nor NREMT Executive Director William Brown could be reached late Thursday.
