Sedgwick County EMS deputy resigns amid department turmoil

Dr. Carolina Pereira, a top medical official in Sedgwick County Emergency Medical Service, has resigned from her position after 18 months, county officials confirmed Friday afternoon.

Pereira gave the county a 90-day notice on Wednesday, according to an email County Manager Tom Stolz sent to Sedgwick County commissioners.

In the email, Stolz said Pereira told him she was “scared to do her job” as deputy medical director and needed to leave, citing a work environment where EMS employees “are allowed to have secret meetings with commissioner(s) and are able to send things to the media or place on social media with no discussion, communication, or ramification.”

Pereira’s resignation comes three months after state Rep. Blake Carpenter, a Derby Republican, called for county officials to consider removing EMS Director John Gallagher amid what he described as a “mass exodus” of EMS personnel.

Carpenter said turmoil in the short-staffed department has reached a breaking point and that current and former paramedics with the county are turning to lawmakers for help.

“From what I’m hearing there’s majors, captains, lieutenants and even just the normal rank and file folks who, if things don’t change, they’re out the door. That’s dozens, if not more,” Carpenter said.

In March, the Kansas Board of Emergency Medical Services called for an investigation into Gallagher over his handling of a 2019 suicide call.

The board proposed disciplining seven Wichita-area emergency responders for failing to take a suicide victim to a hospital five minutes away, even though he had a pulse and labored breathing. The victim survived for another five hours without medical attention beyond palliative medication.

In Stolz’s email, he said Pereira told him she wanted out of Sedgwick County “because things here are ‘wrong’” and employees “make up falsehoods and spread them with no ramification or accountability.”

Pereira, 34, was hired by Sedgwick County EMS in March 2020 and was in charge of training and helping write new protocols. Her position was created when Gallagher was promoted to EMS director in a massive restructuring of the department.

She is returning to her home state of Florida, where she was previously an assistant professor in emergency medicine at the University of Florida Health-Jacksonville.

Pereira did not return multiple phone calls Friday afternoon.

This story was originally published July 9, 2021 at 4:48 PM.