Local paramedic says Portland’s mental health crisis is falling on them

By Haley Rush

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    PORTLAND, Oregon (KPTV) — FOX 12 spoke with a paramedic who said the City of Portland’s growing mental health crisis is falling on them.

“They’re tired of being abused, spit at, punched, stabbed, every single day,” said Erick Gillmore, a paramedic with AMR.

Gillmore has worked as a paramedic in the area for nearly 30 years. He said he loves what he does and helping people in emergencies with medical care, but the job has recently become completely unsafe.

“Over the last, gosh, I want to say two years, more so since the pandemic, just everybody is in crisis,” said Gillmore. “Recently, we had two ambulances that, you know, the crews were attacked.”

“One of them actually took a baseball bat and came up to the crew,” continued Gillmore.

Gillmore believes the homelessness issues in the city are falling on them.

“Everywhere, where you see homeless camps, you see people shooting up,” said Gillmore. “You see people doing drugs.”

“Who goes to those camps when they get called on,” said Gillmore. “We do.”

Gillmore said they don’t have the tools or training to safely respond.

“They all carry weapons,” said Gillmore. “They all carry knives of some sort.”

“Now we’re responsible with frisking them,” he continued. “I’m not in law enforcement, I’m a paramedic.”

He said when attacks happen, there aren’t enough police officers to respond.

“Like I said, we don’t have the training and we don’t have the tools, but when you cut police officers and they’re not able to respond to an emergency that we need, what do we do,” said Gillmore. “We don’t have pepper spray, we don’t have guns, we don’t carry, you know, anything to protect.”

FOX 12 reached out to Portland Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty about Gillmore’s claims.

In a statement she said, “As Portland’s Fire & Rescue Commissioner, I have the highest appreciation for the people working in first response and know just how difficult and often dangerous these jobs can be. No one should fear for their personal safety on the job, especially our health care workers that have already been through so much during this pandemic. I have reached out to the union representing AMR paramedics so I can learn more about their concerns and how the City can help.”

Commissioner Mingus Mapps told FOX 12 in a statement, “The police department is understaffed, so I support the Mayor’s rehire/retire proposal to stabilize staffing immediately. Going forward, we need to add roughly 300 new officers to attain minimum staffing levels for a city of our size. All officers need body cameras. Additionally, I have been a vocal advocate for an increase for the Behavioral Health Unit that sends de-escalation trained officers with clinicians to scenes where there is violence. Increasing the capacity of the BHU can be implemented by the end of the year through the Fall budget process.”

“We want to go home just like everybody else does and I’ve got kids, I got grandkids, you know,” said Gillmore. “I want to be able to do that, so does everybody else, but that’s the dangers of the job sometimes and we want to bring a highlight that it’s gotten worse, and we need to figure out more solutions.”

FOX 12 did speak with other paramedics who said they also fear for their safety. They said a lot of people are quitting left and right because of this.

FOX 12 reached out to Mayor Wheeler’s Office for an interview and did not immediately hear back.

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