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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Paramedics’ Plan For Corpse Cards Is Doa

San Francisco Examiner

Two East Bay paramedics - whose job it is to respond to gory auto crashes and other scenes where human bodies are bloodied and broken - have been suspended from their jobs for trying to market trading cards with grisly photos of battered corpses.

The pair - Paul Schmidt, 29, of Fremont, and Todd Quilici, 31, of Livermore - were suspended with pay on Feb. 14 when officials of American Medical Response learned of their plans to market the $8.95 packs of “Cards of Death.”

“We are incensed,” said Chuck McFadden, spokesman for Fremont-based AMR-West, which is the largest subsidiary of the nationwide American Medical Response and provides emergency 911 service in five California counties.

“This is not the kind of thing that paramedics do. Paramedics are in the business of saving lives, not profiting on death. This just flies in the face of what this company and its paramedic employees are all about.”

Quilici, however, contended that he and Schmidt were trying to do good with the cards - which carry homilies against drunken driving, gang-banging, suicide and the like on their flip sides - and in fact got their idea from the official magazine of the California Highway Patrol.

“You’ve seen the CHP magazine where they have pictures of auto accidents and victims that are basically mangled,” Quilici said. “They tell the story of what happened; they’re kind of an anti-drunk driving thing.”

Their cards are trying to do the same thing, he said, carrying messages about how such deaths as those depicted could be avoided.