After 2 Years, Bitterness Lingers Among Firefighters Over Rescue of AIDS Victim

The toughest part of a fireman’s job can be staying awake during routine training lectures conducted at fire stations.

But nobody was dozing last month when the Los Angeles County Fire Department staged a first-aid refresher course for firefighters from Topanga Canyon and the Las Virgenes area.

The topic was emergency treatment of AIDS victims. The discussion became so heated that five sheriff’s deputies had to be called to break up a confrontation between a fire captain and a battalion chief.

Deputies called by Battalion Chief Jerry Peskett escorted Capt. Jon Galiher from the firehouse. Galiher, who had been involved in one of the department’s first rescue efforts of an AIDS victim, had been asked to comment on his experiences by the training instructor.

Fire officials, objecting to Galiher’s remarks, the next day banned him from entering any fire station without receiving 24-hour advance permission from a top-level chief.

Fire administrators say the May 15 incident at Fire Station 70 in Malibu was unprecedented in the county Fire Department.

Escalating Tension

The confrontation underscored the escalating tension within the 2,700-member department over a 2-year-old AIDS rescue call involving Galiher and its aftermath.

Half of the four-member Topanga Canyon engine company involved in the May 19, 1985, rescue of an AIDS victim in a car crash are now on stress-related leaves of absence.

Unhappy firefighters say their superiors failed to react quickly to their exposure to the acquired immune deficiency syndrome virus. Two of them contend that department administrators punished them and effectively ended their careers when the firefighters spoke up about the problem.

Fire officials deny any wrongdoing, however. They claim that they have bent over backward to assist the Topanga Canyon firemen and have established new procedures that will safeguard all firefighters from exposure to AIDS.

“I think the department reacted properly and, in my opinion, faster to that incident than on anything before,” said county Fire Chief John Englund.

Residents Involved

The dispute has spread to residents of Topanga Canyon. Community leaders say the Topanga Town Council and Topanga Chamber of Commerce have sided with the local firefighters in what the council is calling “a tragedy for both the community and the L.A. County Fire Department.”

The 1985 rescue involved a 33-year-old Echo Park man who drove his car over a 200-foot cliff next to Topanga Canyon Boulevard, purportedly on purpose.

The motorist was near death when firefighters lowered themselves by rope to his crashed car. Without waiting for a mechanical respirator, firemen began administering mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and heart massage in an unsuccessful effort to revive the blood-covered man.

A short time later, investigators checking the man’s wallet for his identification found a card from an AIDS clinic. Medical tests later confirmed that the man had AIDS.

AIDS can be spread through exchange of body fluids, including blood.

Galiher, who was in charge of the rescue effort and is now on leave, said the Fire Department’s first reaction was one of helpfulness and sympathy.

But, after that, he claims, some chief officers began scornfully second-guessing the rescuers’ use of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, with one chief labeling it “stupid.” He said rank-and-file firemen began snubbing the Topanga crew and joking about them.

Galiher said fire officials ignored his men’s requests for blood tests for three months after the incident. The testing was done only after he bypassed department channels and mailed a request for the tests to the county fire chief, he said.

“We had rappelled down the canyon into the brush. We all had cuts on our hands and arms and had this guy’s blood all over us from working on him and pounding on his chest. One of my men had given this guy mouth-to-mouth,” said Galiher, 46.

“I went to my boss and talked to him maybe 50 times about getting blood tests. I sent written memos in. The only response I got back was a memo from one of the chiefs critiquing my memo-writing style.”

Galiher said one member of his crew who sought counseling about the AIDS exposure was dissuaded by a superior, who suggested that the firefighter “take it like a man.” According to Galiher, the entire crew then volunteered to go to the counseling session with the firefighter to keep him from being stigmatized.

Later, private mail containing information about AIDS was removed from the Topanga Canyon fire station by a battalion chief, said Galiher, a 22-year veteran of the department.

When he complained about the department’s purported insensitivity, Galiher contends, he was punished by department administrators who banned him from driving a patrol truck and stripped him of training duties. Galiher was placed on paid, stress-related leave by the department Oct. 29.

Two months later, one of his Topanga firefighters, Sherman Owens II, joined him on leave.

“Capt. Galiher was the buffer. I was alone without him,” said Owens, 38, a 10-year veteran. “I was afraid I’d say or do something to jeopardize my career.”

Owens said “not one chief officer contacted me” about the AIDS rescue incident.

“If I can’t get support when my life is in danger, why am I out there risking it?” he asked.

A third member of the 1985 rescue crew, firefighter Tom Norton, 31, is still on duty. He is now assigned to a Newhall-area brush fire camp crew.

“I think the Fire Department screwed up the whole thing,” Norton said of the AIDS incident.

“I think the chief officers bungled the whole thing from start to finish. A lot of mistakes were made. There was a lack of concern about the human element.”

The fourth rescuer, Shawn Corbeil, 34, also remains on duty. He was the firefighter who gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the crash victim. Because of that, he was given an immediate blood test, which, like the others later, came back negative.

Corbeil declined this week to comment on the incident.

Battalion Chief Gordon Pearson, information officer for the department, said fire officials reacted as quickly as they could after the incident.

“I know the time frame seems excessive. But factually, that was the first incident of confrontation with the disease that this department had had,” Pearson said. “This was the first incident with AIDS.”

Other firefighters disagree, however.

Firefighter Robert Berryman said he and three co-workers were exposed to an AIDS victim during a rescue at a Marina del Rey restaurant in July, 1984, 10 months before the Topanga Canyon rescue.

“My captain filed an exposure report and a health services nurse said, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll set you up to monitor your blood,’ ” said Berryman, 42. “I got a call from someone who said they’d set me up for a blood test.

“But, three years later, I’ve never been scheduled for a blood test and I’ve never heard anything. I don’t think the others there that day have, either.”

Berryman said many firemen have sided with Galiher in the AIDS dispute.

“What’s going to happen when a fireman gets AIDS?” he said. “We know what will happen if we break a leg fighting a fire. But, if I become an AIDS victim, is the department going to say, ‘Tough bananas, dude’?”

Deputy County Fire Chief William Zeason said Berryman was given the phone number of an AIDS evaluation office.

“To the best of our knowledge, he was taken care of,” Zeason said. “We don’t have a system to follow up on it, I’ll be candid. But all a person has to do is ask.”

As for Galiher, Zeason was critical of his actions after the canyon AIDS incident.

“He wants discipline against a chief officer,” Zeason said. “He only wants a public situation. The department is not going to bow to that whim.”

Zeason said Galiher was to blame for the confrontation at the May 15 first-aid training session that ended when sheriff’s deputies were called. Galiher was there because he is required to keep his first-aid training current, even though he is on leave.

“Jon was asked to make his comments. He took that opportunity to make that his forum,” Zeason said. “He ceased discussing the subject matter and began berating the department. He would not sit down.”

Peskett, the battalion chief who called deputies, declined to discuss the incident except to say that Galiher was “asked to comment . . . it’s a matter of what went on from there.”

Chief Englund said Peskett allowed Galiher plenty of latitude during the training session.

“From everything I’ve read on that incident,” Peskett “didn’t respond fast enough” to eject Galiher, Englund said Friday.

Englund said officials have been lenient with Galiher because of the stressful situation the AIDS incident placed Galiher in.

“I think the department has exercised a great deal of patience because of that,” he said. “The department has a great deal of sensitivity. This was an emotional thing. But we are a semi-military organization and we expect a little chain of command here.”

The Topanga Canyon rescue prompted the quick purchase of hundreds of plastic mouth-to-mouth safety tubes that prevent the exchange of saliva during resuscitation efforts, Englund said. He said the department has also reviewed scrubbing and decontamination procedures and provided gloves to reduce the chance of exposure.

Englund said the three-month delay for the Topanga firefighters’ blood tests was not important because the AIDS virus might not have shown up right away if it had been in the rescuers’ blood.

Since the incident, the department has taken steps to deal with emotional stresses of the job and has set up a program for periodic, automatic blood testing of firefighters who have been exposed to AIDS on the job, he said.

He said the emotionalism that caused some firemen and officers to criticize mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after the Topanga incident has subsided.

“To some, it was totally inappropriate that they had that exposure . . . we shouldn’t be doing mouth-to-mouth,” Englund said.

“But it’s a reality of our employment. We had to go back and reinforce to our employees the requirements of our profession. It was a very difficult time for all of us, including myself.”

To Galiher, however, the case is far from closed.

He has a number of grievances pending against the Fire Department and is awaiting the results of a 1985 county labor-relations hearing that outlined many of his complaints.

County procedures called for a ruling last fall but the complicated case could take another two months to resolve, said Walter Daugherty, executive officer of the county’s Employee Relations Commission.

Dallas Jones, president of Los Angeles County Firefighters Local 1014, said his union is pressing for further improvements to “the humane side” of crises such as the Topanga AIDS scare.

“We don’t believe the Fire Department has responded adequately,” Jones said.

Galiher said he continues protesting as a matter of principle because he has decided to retire.

Standing at the window of his hilltop home in Topanga, he pointed down the canyon to Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

“I’m looking to see that the next time a fireman goes down that road to rescue somebody, he’s treated with the same respect that he gives the people he’s helping,” Galiher said.