State Trooper Is Kind Of A Jerk To Man Having A Heart Attack
By Emma G. Gallegos in News on Oct 12, 2015 3:00PM
A man and his son are furious about the way they were treated by a state trooper during a health emergency. The son was pulled over while speeding to get his father to the hospital as he was having a heart attack last month.
When Michael O'Neil was pulled over on the I-355 on Sept. 27 at 10:30 p.m., he thought the state trooper would help him and his ailing father William O'Neil out, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Instead, he got a $1,500 speeding ticket and a lot eye-rolling from the cop.
"We were not a threat," William told the Sun-Times. "If anything, we were an emergency. I think that his approach was terrible, and I think he should be accountable for that."
William, 60, of Lemont had his first heart attack in 2011, and he feared the same thing was happening when he got a "wicked" pain in his chest and shoulder last month. He asked his son to drive him to the Downers Grove where he had been previously treated. Then the state trooper pulled them over when Michael was doing 85 mph in a 55 mph zone.
Michael was hopeful that the trooper would offer him an escort to the hospital, though it turns out that is against policy. What neither of them expected was to be repeatedly questioned about whether they were actually having an emergency.
William told the Sun-Times:
“So I rolled down the window and he said, ‘What’s going on?’ And I said, ‘I think I’m having a heart attack. We’re on the way to the hospital.’ I said, ‘If you will allow me, I will reach down onto the floor for my bag of medication.’ ”“So he told me to lift up the bag. I lifted it up and he said, ‘You don’t look like you’re having a heart attack,’ which, you know, um, was pretty rough. I mean, that’s pretty rough.”
The pair asked the trooper to escort them but he refused and said he was going to have to give Michael a ticket. He said if William needed to go to the hospital, it would have to be in an ambulance. William says, "And I said, 'Call a f—— ambulance.' Sorry, but I didn’t know what the timing was here, you know."
William has since recovered after undergoing surgery, and he hopes to be at work soon. He filed a complaint against the trooper, but the Illinois State Police found that the trooper acted properly.
Master Sgt. Matthew Boerwinkle, a spokesman for the agency, told the Sun-Times that anyone in a medical emergency should call 9-1-1 instead of trying to go to the hospital themselves: "The chances of causing a crash increase significantly during self-transport, because motorists tend to drive erratically and speed excessively during medical emergencies."