Two paramedics who were called to save a man’s life have been charged with first-degree murder after the man suffocated to death when the suspects strapped him onto a gurney face-down.
The charges against Peter Cadigan, 50, and Peggy Finley, 40, in connection with the Dec. 18 death of 35-year-old Earl L. Moore Jr., of Springfield, Ill., were announced on Jan. 10 by Sangamon County State’s Attorney Dan Wright, NPR Illinois reports.
The Sangamon County State’s Attorney Office did not immediately return PEOPLE’s request for information on the case.
The Lifestar EMS workers were called to Moore’s home just after 2 a.m. after police officers responded to a 911 call. Those officers reported that Moore had possibly been experiencing hallucinations from alcohol withdrawal and that he required medical attention, according to a press release from the Springfield Police Department.
When they arrived, the pair placed the patient on the stretcher lying flat on his stomach and tightened a medical strap across his back and lower body, newly released body camera footage shows.
Moore was then taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said.
A coroner’s report obtained by PEOPLE revealed that Moore’s cause of death was “compressional and positional asphyxia, due to prone face-down restraint on a paramedic transportation stretcher due to straps across the back.”
The pair should have known from their training and experience that positioning a patient in such a way “would create a substantial probability of great bodily harm or death,” Wright told Fox News.
The status of the pair’s employment is not immediately known.
“It’s still under investigation so we’re not allowed to talk about it,” Lifestar Ambulance Service tells PEOPLE.
Cadigan and Finley are being held in the Sangamon County Jail, according to multiple reports. It is not immediately clear if they had entered pleas or retained attorneys.
