Ambulance Firm Says Pincay Declined Aid

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Ambulance Firm Says Pincay Declined Aid
by Margaret Ransom
Date Posted: 9/21/2003 8:07:06 PM
Last Updated: 9/23/2003 10:53:50 AM

Jockey Laffit Pincay Jr.
Photo: AP/Benoit

The general manager of the ambulance company threatened with a lawsuit by an attorney for jockey Laffit Pincay Jr. says the Hall of Fame rider declined assistance following the accident at Santa Anita that ended his career.

Stacy O'Bryan, general manager of the Huntington Ambulance Service, said that if the lawsuit is filed, she's confident any allegations against her company will prove groundless.

"I feel confident in saying that (Pincay) was treated professionally and exactly according to the state law," O'Bryan said. "He was also given every opportunity to go to the hospital and declined. When you look at the laws we're governed by, we cannot force a patient to be treated. We absolutely cannot force anyone of sound mind to be treated if they absolutely don't want to.

"I will not settle and I will tell my attorneys not to settle, that's how confident I am that (Huntington Ambulance) followed procedure correctly. The bottom line is that if these attorneys want to find out our side of the story here, we'd be happy to tell it. But so far, nobody has bothered."

In a bloodhorse.com report Friday, attorney Neil Papiano said Pincay plans to file a lawsuit this week over the care he received in the minutes following his career-ending spill at Santa Anita on March 1. The attorney said the lawsuit will name Santa Anita, Huntington Ambulance and physician's assistant Angel Delgadillo as defendants.

"Huntington Ambulance failed to follow appropriate procedures following a serious collision ... the ambulance group permitted Pincay to walk under his own power to the ambulance and then to the first aid station operated by Santa Anita," the suit will allege, according to Papiano.

O'Bryan said Saturday that she previously knew little about the possibility of impending litigation aside from receiving requests for medical records regarding the incident. She said she notified her company's attorney upon reading the bloodhorse.com story.

"(The lawsuit) is all hearsay as far as I'm concerned," O'Bryan said. "I've been in contact with our attorney and told him as much as I know now, which isn't much. The only correspondence we've had with any (of Pincay's) attorneys is when they requested records on the incident, but those belong to the track. Unless we transport to the hospital, those records are property of the racetrack, which employs us."

Huntington ambulance has served the Southern California racing circuit since 1968 and at Santa Anita specifically since 1978.

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