Elmhurst Disputes Statement On 2015 Emergency Response

Elmhurst IL

20 May, 2021

1:06 PM

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ELMHURST, IL — For most of the last two months, the Elmhurst city government delayed releasing information and answering questions about its emergency response in a 2015 incident in which a 13-year-old girl died. However, officials this week have come forward to dispute a statement made by Shelly LeGere, the mother of the girl, Annie LeGere. Late last week, Mayor Scott Levin, who took office earlier this month, emailed Patch about the city's response to Shelly LeGere's allegation that the city enacted a short-lived policy in 2015 where fire trucks would not respond to emergency medical service calls. This was a question that Patch had been trying to get answered for two months. Levin confirmed the policy ending the response of fire trucks applied to "difficulty breathing" cases and that it was reversed shortly after Annie LeGere's death. After the story about Levin's statement appeared Monday, Alderwoman Dannee Polomsky, who until recently was the chairwoman of the Public Affairs and Safety Committee, disputed one of the assertions Shelly LeGere made in March, which was repeated in the Monday story. In a March story in Patch, Shelly LeGere said the city's ambulance company, Metro Paramedic Services, sent two "brand-new" paramedics to respond to her daughter's situation — one on the job for a month, the other for three months. In an email to Patch on Monday, Polomsky said one of the medics dispatched to Annie LeGere in August 2015 had been with Metro for seven years, including four years in Elmhurst. Asked where she got the information, Polomsky said it was from City Manager Jim Grabowski. Grabowski said Polomsky was correct. He also said the other paramedic was new to the city fire department, with more than a month of service. Asked about this, Shelly LeGere expressed surprise that the ambulance company was saying one of the paramedics had years of experience. "I was told by a source that both were new to the job," LeGere said. "I mentioned this at my early meetings with Jim Grabowski and (then-mayor) Steve Morley." Her daughter died of a severe allergic reaction at a slumber party. Afterward, Shelly LeGere formed the Annie LeGere Foundation, which led the effort to enact a state law requiring all first responders to be equipped with EpiPens. The law was signed by then-Gov. Bruce Rauner at Elmhurst City Hall as Shelly LeGere watched. The foundation also offered to pay for Elmhurst to get advanced life support on its fire trucks. The city declined. Earlier this year, the issue of advanced life support became a big issue at City Hall. Then-Alderman Michael Bram made adding such equipment to fire trucks a major plank during his unsuccessful mayoral campaign. And the firefighters union said they were fine providing advanced life support as a back-up to Metro paramedics. But Polomsky and others opposed such a move, citing the city attorney's warning that the union could demand more pay for the added service. The union said it would not do that. During a Public Affairs and Safety Committee meeting, over which Polomsky presided, Liz Ambrogi, a foundation board member and friend of Shelly LeGere, referred to Annie LeGere's death in supporting adding advanced life support equipment to fire trucks. But she did not directly link the tragedy to the lack of advanced life support on the trucks. Three days after the meeting, Alderwoman Marti Deuter, a committee member, emailed Ambrogi saying she was "deeply concerned" with the misrepresentations she said Ambrogi made on the quality of care that Annie LeGere received from the Elmhurst Fire Department, which oversees the ambulance contract. "You have suggested that Annie's life may have been saved if Elmhurst equipped its fire apparatus with ALS capability," Deuter said in the email, titled "Exploiting a Tragedy." "You have also suggested that Annie's life may have been saved if firefighters, rather than Metro paramedics, staffed Elmhurst's ambulances." She said advanced life support on fire trucks would not have changed the "trajectory of that tragic night." "To suggest otherwise is a disservice to the public who hears your inflammatory and false claims and is an exploitation of a young girl's tragic death," Deuter said. "Recognizing the deep pain of Annie LeGere's family and friends, no one wants to publicly present the facts of her death to refute your claims. Instead, I'm sending this email to ask you to stop utilizing false claims to support changes you would like to see at the Fire Department." Asked by Patch about her email at the time, Deuter apologized. "I made a mistake in responding to social media posts," Deuter said in an email. "I will not make any further comments out of respect for the family. I continue to be willing to meet one-on-one with Mrs. LeGere, but I will not engage in discussion through the press or social media." Deuter did not identify the social media posts. Shelly LeGere emailed Deuter four days after the "Exploiting a Tragedy" message. She said she was appalled at Deuter's accusing her friend of misrepresentations and inflammatory and false claims. "The level of insensitivity and lack of empathy you have displayed is indescribable," Shelly LeGere said. "I had truly hoped that there would come a time at some point that the city would show some regret and offer an apology for the inadequate care my daughter (received). I have been robbed of the most important person in my life, my amazing Annie, a lifetime of memories to be made and dreams to be fulfilled, gone."