Whistleblower: A Year Later, LA Paramedics Are Still Left Working With Expired Medication As They Respond To Fires
As wildfires scour the Los Angeles suburbs, resources are scarce — including for the city’s paramedics, who have allegedly been working with expired medication. But this problem is hardly new.
Last year, the Los Angeles Fire Department was allegedly supplying medics with expired medications, Fox 11 reported. At the time, the LAFD claimed it got an “extension” on the expiration dates due to a “supply shortage,” and that “new medication was received” since then. But a whistleblower — who asked The Federalist to protect his identity — says the city is still keeping its medics stocked with expired drugs.
“Imagine I’m your mom or dad and I get expired medication, your mom or dad dies,” the whistleblower said. “What would you say?”
The whistleblower, a firefighter and paramedic, told The Federalist his ambulance is currently stocked with expired medication. He said he deals with expired drugs “literally every day” because the city does not resupply medics with newer doses.
Nitroglycerin spray used by LAFD paramedics.
The nitroglycerin expired in November but is still in the whistleblower’s ambulance.
Epinephrine, which also expired in November, in the whistleblower’s ambulance.
“They continue to not have the medications. Everything expires, and so we can’t keep up,” he said. He sent pictures of epinephrine and nitroglycerin spray, both of which are marked as having expired in November — but are not currently listed as having extended expiration dates.
The whistleblower claims the city put labels with new expiration dates over the old dates, such as with a vial of the sedative Midazolam — set to expire in February of last year, but which came with a stick-on expiration date of that July. Local news reported on this at the time.
The whistleblower says he tried bringing this issue to the attention of LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley last year but never heard back.
Midazolam with the new expiration date covering the old.
Image CreditMidazolam with the new expiration date covering the old.
The same vial of Midazolam with the original expiration.
Image CreditThe same vial of Midazolam with the original expiration.
Straining Resources
While the medication issue has been longstanding, so has the broader lack of resources among the city’s paramedics.
While the wildfires have been threatening Los Angeles, most of the city has been out of reach of the few ambulances on duty, according to a map the whistleblower shared with The Federalist.
“This is what happens every single day, if not worse,” said the whistleblower. He says he routinely answers calls with 20-plus minute response times.
The green on the map shows areas with ambulance coverage, the whistleblower says, while the red shows a lack thereof. Purple and yellow indicate paramedics are present, but in vehicles aside from ambulances. A screenshot of the map — taken in real time Monday night — shows much of the city in red.
The whistleblower also provided a screenshot of the map from Friday, showing an even worse situation — a blanket of no ambulance coverage across the city, except for three small areas.
The LAFD has been operating under pressure to rein in spending, with Mayor Karen Bass pressuring the department to cut nearly $49 million just weeks before the massive Palisade Fire and Eaton Fire on the city’s outskirts.
The Federalist obtained a memo from October 2024, in which Nichole Bosson — medical director for L.A. County EMS — urges first responders to scale back the use of IV fluid due to a “current shortage in sterile fluid.”
Bosson urged firefighters and medics to consider the following for “prehospital intravenous fluid resuscitation”: Withhold IV fluid unless a patient shows “signs of poor perfusion requiring immediate intravenous therapy,” withhold IV fluid from asymptomatic patients with hyperglycemia or arrhythmia, give fluids orally to dehydrated patients, and reduce one’s fluid loss with drugs and temperature management.
While this leaves just a few ambulances spread across the city, carrying expired medication, the LAFD has been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on DEI-related issues. It spent $100,000 on celebrating Juneteenth, another $100,000 on a “Midnight Stroll Transgender Cafe,” and more than $14,000 on the “Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles.”
Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He is a spring 2025 fellow of The College Fix. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.
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