10:59 PM EDT on Tuesday, May 4, 2004

A teenage boy says Jefferson County emergency medical services turned its back on him during a critical time.

Severely wounded and bleeding, the Louisville teen rode his bicycle for miles to get to an emergency room.

Why didn't two paramedics and an EMT come to his aid?

For a teenager we'll call “Shawn,” the day started out with great expectations of joy. It should have been a memorable day for vastly different reasons. Instead, it turned into one of the worst days of his life.

Always ready to serve: a guiding principle for emergency medical services. Paramedics and EMTs are the eyes and ears of doctors on the street.

Shawn, not his real name, was brought up to believe ambulances, and the men and women operating them, were there to help in an emergency.

It’s a belief Shawn lost the day he was shot.

“I was getting worried, wondering if I was going to make it or not,” he says. “If it’s going to be my last day on earth.”

There's more than one layer to this story. For Shawn, it began as a special day -- a day created for happy memories.

“It was my birthday,” he says.

A fourteenth birthday he can't forget.

“I heard these little gunshots.”

Shawn and a friend were near 24th and Ali on December 29, 2002, riding bicycles.

“It didn't feel like a gunshot,” he says.

In an instant, he was in the crossfire of a violent argument, a shootout. Shawn didn't know Corey Ellery or the others involved. That's why his mother fears for her son's safety.

“I got hit in the back part of my shoulder,” Shawn says.

As blood coursed from Shawn's red colored shirt, he and his friend, not knowing what else to do, headed east for a hospital on their bicycles.

After peddling roughly two miles, he spotted a county ambulance at a red light by the Galleria. The teen thought he found the help he desperately sought. Shawn knocked on the driver's side window.

“And I asked if they could take me to the hospital ‘cause I had been shot. I showed them the gun wound and my jacket and my shirt, which had blood on it,” Shawn says.

According to Shawn, paramedic Everett Scott told him, “That he was going to lunch and that the hospital was only a few blocks up, so go ahead and ride to the hospital.”

Zager: He told you that he was going to lunch and to ride your bicycle because the hospital is only a few more blocks away?

Shawn: Yes, sir.

As we said, there are layers to this story.

“It is simply inconsistent that someone would present, show themselves bleeding and have any EMS crew turn them away,” says EMS chief Mike Riordan. “That simply is not consistent with what we do every day.”

So why is it Shawn rode another mile on his bicycle to get to University Hospital? And why did paramedic Scott contact the county communications center and police after Shawn rode off?

Scott: I didn't see any blood on his back in the mirror and he was pedaling on the bicycle so I don't know if it was just a prank or, you know, or what, so I’m just a little concerned about it you know, but.

Dispatcher: OK.

Scott: We never took any information or initiated any care. We never even got out of the vehicle.

Two others were on board. Including another paramedic and an EMT named Patrick Parker. Parker, in a narrative, wrote: “I am not going to just jump out of the ambulance, because if this guy has been shot, where is the shooter? Will I be shot at next? Or what if this guy is just trying to lure me outside of the ambulance to rob me of some sort of prescribed drug?”

Med squad 129 says the encounter lasted no more than 15 seconds. Shawn says he didn't wait long because he did not want to waste any more time.

“When I first got to the hospital I collapsed,” Shawn says.

Riordan says his crew, in this instance, did what's expected -- they called communications and spoke to police, advising them of what happened and suggested an officer look for the teen.

“If that crew had not called police, made contact with dispatch and said, ‘Hey, we better go look for somebody,’ I would be unhappy and we would be talking discipline because that is a crew that abrogated their duty,” says Riordan.

He can't say how long Squad 129 looked for Shawn, but it wasn't long, because the crew needed to return to its post in the county.

“They turned the corner, he wasn't there.” Riordan says his office conducted an exhaustive internal investigation and found no truth to Shawn’s allegation that paramedic Scott would not treat him because he was going to lunch.

But Shawn’s mother says her son had no reason to make up a tall tale.

“Basically, they told me it didn't happen that way. Well, like I was telling them, there are two sides to everything and I believe what my son told me,” she says.

As for the bullet near Shawn’s left shoulder, it’s still there. Doctors told him it was better to leave it alone. He does not like to dwell on what might have happened had he not found the stamina to peddle three miles on his bicycle.

“Like a lunch matters more than a life.”

Paramedic Everett Scott turned down our request for an interview.

Shawn's friend, “Bruce,” told me by phone he heard the paramedic say they were headed for lunch. EMS chief Riordan says there's nothing to substantiate that.

The Kentucky Board of Emergency Medical Services, an independent state agency, has nearly concluded its investigation and found nothing to suggest the crew violated its duties.

Web story produced by Jay Ditzer.