`EMT`s Gone Wild` Forces FDNY Resignations

May 6, 2007 -- They were supposed to be saving lives, not mocking them.

Two medics made an outrageous 50-minute tape on the job that shows their crude interactions with hookers and bums - and a nasty running commentary making fun of patients, neighborhoods and the FDNY, The Post has learned.

The pair was forced to resign last week, but the public had no idea just how badly they betrayed their badges.

The footage included:

• A shocking sequence in which a prostitute bares her breasts.
• A nasty prank in which a medic taps a drunk on the shoulder before he tips over.
• A mean-spirited verbal poke at a homeless woman frequently picked up for public drunkenness.
• A medic - one of the amateur filmmakers - asleep in the cab of the ambulance in broad daylight. He's then shaken awake by the other medic as a supervisor approaches.
• An intoxicated couple in their home filmed during an emergency call.

The X-rated tape, spliced together and depicting patients and street people, some of whom were apparently unaware they were being filmed, is described as a crude mix of "Girls Gone Wild" - the risqué Joe Francis films of co-eds flashing their breasts - and Don Imus-style ridicule.

"EMTs Gone Wild," one insider dubbed the disgusting display.

When the raunchy tape surfaced recently, it led to the swift resignations of emergency medical technicians David Campbell, 39, and Kevin Edell, 40, who "videotaped their patients while on duty," the FDNY said.

The lewd tape apparently was shared with friends and colleagues as entertainment.

"They played it for a load of laughs, but it wasn't a joke once it went high up," an FDNY insider said.

The tape, which was produced several years ago, blew up in the EMTs' faces when an unknown snitch decided to expose it.

Mystery envelopes with no return address were mailed to numerous FDNY chiefs and commanders at the same time - each one getting a copy of the same DVD and an anonymous letter. It sent shock waves through the department's highest ranks.

Recipients included FDNY Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, Emergency Medical Service Chief John Peruggia, and the FDNY's Bureau of Investigations and Trials.

Investigators immediately summoned Campbell and Edell to headquarters.

After consulting a lawyer provided by their union, the two quit on the spot.

The FDNY said they did so "under threat of termination."

In a brief press release, the FDNY revealed only that Campbell - an instructor at the department's academy on Randalls Island - and Edell had violated a department rule against photographing or recording patients without department permission.

An FDNY spokesman declined to describe the footage, calling it "inappropriate."

But sources with knowledge of the tape described it as horribly offensive and embarrassing.

A supervisor is seen and heard on the tape, but it's unclear whether he was knowingly participating, a high-ranking source said.

That supervisor left the department about two years ago.

It's also unclear how the EMTs got away with the filming at the time. Some supervisors work in the field overseeing ambulance runs, but too few to go around, a union official griped Friday.

"We do not have enough supervision in the field," said Tom Eppinger, president of the Uniformed EMS Officers Union.

Campbell and Edell allegedly made the tape when they were partners stationed out of the EMS Battalion 43 based in a garage next to Coney Island Hospital.

The station serves southern Brooklyn, including Gravesend, Coney Island, Sheepshead Bay, Midwood, Marine Park, and parts of Bensonhurst. Ambulances take patients to several hospitals in the area.

Some EMT workers refer to the area that the duo usually patrolled - near Astroland Park in Coney Island - as the "the pit" or "armpit" of Brooklyn.

Why the tape surfaced recently is unclear, but sources speculate that someone with a grudge against one of the EMTs ratted on him.

The allegations shocked those who knew the EMTs. Chief Donovan Wright, head of the Lawrence-Cedarhurst Fire Department in Long Island, where Campbell serves as a volunteer, said: "He's a stand-up guy. And all 85 guys in the firehouse would say the same thing."

Campbell had worked for the department for 17 years, Edell for 14 years.

But they will not collect their pensions, said FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon.

Both Campbell, who is single and lives in Cedarhurst, and Edell, who lives in Staten Island with his wife and kids, were unavailable for comment last week.

Both EMTs were well regarded. On FDNY EMS "Medal Day" in 2005, Campbell was among those honored for a "pre-hospital save," meaning he helped resuscitate a patient in cardiac arrest.

"You've got to be a dumb ass to do something like this," one EMT said. "They violated the public trust and humiliated the people who rely on us to protect and serve them. It's absolutely awful."

Additional reporting by Michael Scholl

Republished courtesy the New York Post