A suspected DUI driver blows into a portable breath test at a checkpoint in Newtown Township earlier this year.
Credit: Tom Sofield/NewtownPANow.com
A bill to allow paramedics to conduct blood draws on behalf of municipal police in suspected DUI cases is headed to the governor’s desk.
The Officer Brian Gregg Act (HB 2058) made its way through the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in spring and the state Senate on Monday.
The proposed law is designed to allow paramedics called to suspected DUI traffic stops to conduct blood draws for blood alcohol content test. The results of the test are needed to attempt to make a DUI conviction.
Currently, officers who stop a driver for DUI have to transport the person to a nearby hospital where a trained medical professional takes blood samples for a blood alcohol content test.
The bill, which was first proposed by state representatives Frank Farry (R-Langhorne) and Gene DiGirolamo (R-Bensalem), notes paramedics working with emergency medical squads can conduct blood draws because they are “considered to be within the paramedic’s scope of practice.”
DiGirolamo said at the time the bill was introduced that having police transport the suspected DUI driver to the hospital “can increase the time an officer is unavailable and raise the likelihood of an unsafe situation occurring in a public setting.”
The bill is named after the Newtown Borough patrolman who was shot dead 10 years ago by Falls Township resident Robert Flor at St. Mary Medical Center in Middletown after being transported there for a DUI blood draw. Flor fatally shot Gregg, who grew up in Levittown and lived in Newtown, and injured a hospital employee. The shooter escaped and was found in the hospital parking garage after a large manhunt. Flor, who currently sits in prison, was revealed to have had several past run-ins with Falls and Middletown police.
