A Melbourne firefighter named as firefighter of the quarter late last year faces dismissal after what administrators describe as a ‘serious lack of judgement and self-control,’ in several incidents, from accidentally hitting a nursing home patient with an oxygen tank to taking a fire engine to his girlfriend’s barbecue dinner.
Firefighter Allan Reyna, 43, was suspended with pay pending a possible termination hearing after the department’s administrators reviewed details of a Feb. 23 incident in which he was called to help with a patient experiencing respiratory distress. Instead of being helpful, the nursing staff later reported to fire department administrators that Reyna was being aggressive, rude and unprofessional, reports show. A hearing on the charges will take place 4 p.m. Thursday.
It was the latest, and one of the more serious outcomes to a spate of investigations that followed Reyna’s career since 1995. In the latest incident, witnesses said that Reyna turned up at Avante, a nursing home, put in an oxygen cylinder to help the patient breathe and slammed the other tank into a nearby bed without looking, reports show.