During their Tauranga District Court trial this week, the jury was told that an EMC medic suspected the teen at the motocross event had a collapsed lung and broken ribs when he administered two doses of morphine.
The medic told Westpac helicopter paramedic Richard Elms, whose evidence was read by prosecutor Dan Coulson, that the boy was in “a lot of pain”.
Elms said: “I determined that the boy’s injuries did not appear immediately as serious as noted.”
When Elms attempted to discuss the patient’s care, the EMC medic allegedly “just said, ‘I don’t f*** around’”, which Elms had found “unprofessional”.
The rider’s father said in court that he’d never seen morphine administered immediately at the accident site. Usually, a parent would be sought for consent.
He wasn’t happy his son had been given morphine, saying his experience with first aid and motocross events led him to believe his son should have been kept coherent, especially as he appeared to be having some difficulty with his breathing.
“The last thing you want to do is give them something so they can’t speak,” he said.
It turned out the boy had only bruising, not broken ribs or a collapsed lung.
His treatment forms the basis for the charge of administering the class B controlled drug morphine, which is faced by Craig Lohgan and a third former EMC director, who has already been dealt with by the court.
The Crown alleged the private ambulance did not have the necessary “standing orders” that allowed its staff to administer controlled drugs at the time the 14-year-old was given morphine.
Medic was ‘digging around’ trying to find vein
Other patients treated by EMC were called by the Crown, not concerning charges of administering controlled drugs, but because the Crown seeks to prove EMC altered records related to the patients’ care.
The Crown case is that Couchman and Lohgan were attempting to satisfy a Medsafe audit that was triggered after a pharmacist had concerns about the quantity and frequency of fentanyl and morphine being prescribed.
It is alleged they wanted to create records for the use of morphine and fentanyl so that the doctor who was providing prescriptions would be satisfied and continue to write scripts.
However, the defence case is that the false records were only ever intended for “training purposes”.
The patients called by the Crown were motocross riders and equestrian competitors, as the private ambulance was often at those sorts of events. EMC could not respond to 111 calls.
The jury heard details of broken collarbones, fibulas, tibias and ribs. Patients described flying over handlebars and horses’ heads, and went into detail about the treatment received.
Several gave evidence to say that putting in an intravenous (IV) line seemed to pose a challenge for some EMC medics.
Rider Kirstin Kelly was warming up her horse at a Taupō event when it “somersaulted” and landed on her.
She was knocked out for about 10 seconds.
An EMC medic attended and took her to the ambulance. Kelly described how the medic had been “digging around in my arm” trying to find a vein.
Kelly’s accident happened in 2013, when she was in her early 40s and still professionally competing in horse trials. But EMC had a patient report form for another accident, almost identical in its description, for an event in 2017.
According to those notes, Kelly was said to have been given fentanyl and morphine, with a further reference to a 10mg morphine dose that had been “drawn in haste” and then “dumped”.
Kelly said there was no way she had an accident in 2017, as she had retired from competitive riding by then.
Motocross rider Caleb Richardson said that, after he came off his bike at an event and injured his shoulder on a tree, he managed to get back to the start of the track.
He was looked at by an EMC medic, who noted he had “good” veins.
However, it still took about 10 attempts to get a line in, which gave him a “bit of doubt” about the medic.
There was a reproduced patient report form for him for a later date, and he confirmed he hadn’t had an incident that day.
He also confirmed he wasn’t given morphine or fentanyl, as the second record suggested.
The record also stated that some additional morphine and fentanyl, on top of that purported to have been given as a treatment, had been “dumped”, without a reason noted.
Motocross rider Rachel Menzies, whose surname was then Badger, broke her fibula after a bad landing from a misjudged jump.
She remembers being given “the green whistle”, a pain-relief inhaler, and being put on the back of a white ute to get her off the remote track.
The patient report form produced as evidence appeared to have the date missing, and listed IV treatments of controlled drugs she didn’t recall getting.
The Crown case is coming to an end, having heard from patients, doctors who acted as “medical directors” for the ambulance service, the pharmacist who became concerned about their prescription history, and police officers.
Hannah Bartlett is a Tauranga-based Open Justice reporter at NZME. She previously covered court and local government for the Nelson Mail, and before that was a radio reporter at Newstalk ZB.
