A state appeals court has ordered a Chicago firefighters' pension board to award a paramedic a duty disability pension equal to 75 percent of her salary after a little over five years on the job, because they said the board ignored evidence the paramedic had suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The board had rejected the claim because they said the paramedic’s disability claim arose years later from incidents paramedics can regularly encounter.
On Feb. 1, a three-justice panel of the Illinois First District Appellate Court found in favor of the plaintiff, Leah Siwinski, who had served as a paramedic at the Chicago Fire Department from December 2008 until January 2014.
Two years after she began working for the department, Siwinski responded to a call in which a firefighter she knew was laid dead on her stretcher. Siwinski testified she was not emotionally prepared for such an incident.