A paramedic accused of sexually assaulting an unconscious patient admitted to police that he touched the woman inappropriately. The paramedic said he only did that to inflict pain in order to get a response. Sounds like bull____ to me, but then again who am I to judge? Innocent ’til proven guilty. click below to read the rest of the story.
The affidavit for Mark Powell, who is on unpaid leave from American Medical Response, outlines the 22-year-old victim’s statement to police and details Powell’s alleged confession.
Powell could not be reached for comment Monday.
Police Thursday charged Powell, 49, of 90 Clintonville Road, North Haven, with first-degree sexual assault and unlawful restraint. He will be arraigned Jan. 19 in Superior Court in Meriden.
The story has received worldwide attention, with the Daily Mail, EMS World, CNN, the Washington Post and Bossip among the media outlets reporting it since police Friday announced Powell’s arrest. He surrendered and is free on $25,000 bail.
According to the warrant, Powell first told police the reason he manipulated the woman’s genitals was to “apply pain stimuli to elicit a response†or wake the woman, and that at no point during the ambulance ride to Yale-New Haven Hospital did she become conscious.
The victim said when she woke up in an AMR ambulance, an employee was pinching her breast, causing pain, and that his fingers touched her genitals and penetrated her, causing pain, the warrant said, and that she was conscious only for possibly 30 seconds to a minute while the incident was occurring.
Powell also said that in the past he had seen nurses use pain stimuli to the nipple of hospital patients and that the technique could be used on men and women. He also allegedly indicated to police that it was not an appropriate technique.
Officials at the New Haven Sponsor Hospital, a program that oversees paramedic protocol locally, could not be reached for comment Monday, but an individual familiar with such protocols said paramedics can determine the level of consciousness of a patient by applying a pain stimulus.
How the stimulus is applied is an “individual practice. I do it by pinching the earlobe. A lot of people use the knuckles to rub the sternum,†said a source familiar with paramedic procedures.
