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Senators Back Shielding EMT Records

Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
Wikimedia Commons
/
The Florida Channel
Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.

With the bill pointing to interactions between emergency workers and violent, angry and mentally unstable people, a Senate committee Tuesday supported granting a public-records exemption to paramedics and emergency-medical technicians.

The Senate Health Policy Committee approved the bill (SB 320), filed by Sen. Garrett Richter, R-Naples, with little discussion.

The proposal would allow information such as home addresses, telephone numbers and dates of birth of paramedics and emergency-medical technicians to be exempt from disclosure under the state's public-records law.

"They often deal with violent, angry, or mentally unstable individuals,'' the bill says.

"As a result, the Legislature finds that release of identifying and location information of emergency medical technicians or paramedics … or the spouses and children of such emergency medical technicians or paramedics, could place them in danger of being physically or emotionally harmed or stalked by a person who has a hostile reaction to his or her encounter with such emergency medical technicians or paramedics."