Update: Former EMT found not guilty, all charges dismissed
CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – By the end of Day 2 of the trial for a former ambulance worker charged with the rape of a patient while in transit, the jury heard testimony from doctors with conflicting opinions, the angry driver of the ambulance, interviews, and both the victim and defendant.
On March 10, 2017, police were dispatched to Alfred Thun Road in Clarksville to investigate an emergency medical technician (EMT) who was transporting a patient from a Nashville hospital. According to previous reports, the suspect, then-20-year-old Samuel Rutherford, was in the back of the private emergency vehicle with the female patient. The victim told police Rutherford forced her to perform oral sex on him.
Here are five takeaways from the first two days of trial.
1. Doctor vs. doctor
According to testimony from expert witness Rex Arendall, a retired neurosurgeon, the victim was referred to him in 2016 after dealing with back and leg pain. Under his care, she received two surgeries. In the days following her second surgery in March 2017, Valium and oxycodone made her relaxed but confused, and her memory was affected, Arendall said.
The female patient was medicated with instant-release oxycodone every three hours and Valium every four to six hours. On the day of her discharge, her last dose of Valium was at noon, five hours before she left, and her last dose of oxycodone was at 3 p.m., two hours before her discharge.
The defense brought its own medical expert, Dr. Glen Farr, a pharmaceutical professor at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
Farr said that based off the medical records that he analyzed and observed, he believed enough time had passed since her last logged medications that she would have been drowsy but not impaired. He concluded that her level of intoxication would have been so low, she would have been able to make coherent judgments.
2. ‘I had to call an ambulance, for an ambulance’
MedicOne, a private ambulance company, was transporting the woman from Tristar Southern Hills to a rehabilitation center in Caldwell County, Kentucky. Rutherford was the lead on the patient’s care and stayed in the back of the ambulance while his partner, EMT John Sympson, drove the ambulance.
“I was on the interstate, and he started asking several repetitive questions,” Sympson recalled. “He said, ‘What’s our ETA? What’s our ETA?'”
According to Sympson, Rutherford said something about hanging up a privacy curtain and put his backpack over the small window that separated the driver from the back. Sympson said he got a bad feeling and called his supervisor, who advised him to start recording on the security camera in the back of the ambulance.
When Sympson heard the sound of a belt buckle, he called 911, took the next exit off the interstate, and shouted that he was calling the police.
When Rutherford removed the backpack and leaned out into the driver’s area, Sympson punched him in the face. As they pulled into a gas station, Sympson said, he heard the patient scream. When he stopped, he found that Rutherford had hung himself from the railings of the ambulance and was unconscious.
Rutherford awoke as he was being dragged out of the ambulance, and Sympson called 911 again.
“I remember laughing about it later, not laughing because it was funny, but I called 911 and said I need an ambulance for my ambulance.”
3. Compelling interview? Or coerced?
At around midnight on March 11, 2017, Rutherford was interviewed by detectives. He was sitting in a small room with a table and was shackled to the wall.
Rutherford was told that he was being detained for questioning and was read his Miranda rights. He asked if he could call his parents, who are both attorneys. During that call, he told his parents that he was just detained and not arrested and that if he gave them his statement, he could possibly go home. But his parents disagreed.
“You’ve been arrested, and right now, they are trying to figure out what to charge you with,” they could be heard telling him over the phone. “Don’t talk to anyone about anything. If the police ask you a question, you tell them, ‘I am not answering any question without an attorney present.'”
The phone call ended, and Sgt. Tina Slaven, a detective with the CPD Special Victims Unit, returned to speak with Rutherford, who told her, “I feel like I would like to give my side, even though my dad told me otherwise. I feel like it would be good for everyone else to give my side of it.”
During his statement to police, Rutherford tearfully admitted an inappropriate conversation took place. He claimed the victim was making self-deprecating comments and that she hadn’t had sex in over a year. He said she put her hand on his knee.
“I got up, moved around a little, and when I came back, she did it again,” Rutherford said in his interview. “I just found reasons to keep moving until I ran out of reasons.”
He said the victim told him to make the back of the ambulance more private, so he turned off the lights and hung up his backpack to obstruct the driver’s view. No sooner had he exposed himself to her, and the act started, Sympson shouted at them.
“For lack of a better term, do you feel like you raped her?” Slaven asked Rutherford, who shakily responded.
“I feel like I did something that I can’t take back,” Rutherford said. “I feel like I robbed someone on a level I can never feel fully sorry for.”
4. Victim takes stand despite impaired memory
The state’s final witness was the female patient. Clarksville Now does not identify victims in sex crime cases.
District Attorney General Robert Nash asked if she remembered anything from her admission to the hospital on March 7, 2017, to her discharge on March 10, 2017.
“I don’t remember hardly anything,” she said as dabbed at her face with a tissue. “I don’t remember being there.”
“What is the first recollection or memory that you have after the surgery on March 7, 2017?” Nash asked her.
“In the ambulance with …” She gave a long pause, grimacing as she glanced at the defense table before she lowered her eyes. “Waking up in the ambulance with a penis in my mouth.”
Nash asked if the act that happened in the back of the ambulance was something she wanted.
“That would be the last thing that I would think of after having two operations, hurting like that, and being in so much pain,” she responded wryly. “No. I did not.”
The victim had no other recollection of the ambulance ride, saying she couldn’t remember using her phone or even speaking. Then, she was shown a picture.
During the interview with Slaven, Rutherford admitted showing a picture of his genitals to the victim, and that photo was entered into evidence. Bodycam audio captured portions of the victim’s initial interview with on-scene officers, during which she could be heard telling the officers, about their conversation, during which he showed her a photo of his penis.
When the victim saw the picture in court, she looked visibly disgusted. She set the photo down and looked away from it. “No. I don’t remember seeing that.”
5. Rutherford says he was exhausted
Rutherford’s attorney, Jeff Grimes, said that the night before the victim was discharged from the hospital, Rutherford and his partner had worked a late shift together, clocking in at noon on March 9, and clocking out at around 7 a.m. on March 10.
Rutherford said he had slept until about 11 a.m. when his ex-girlfriend woke him up, and he could not go back to sleep. At 2 p.m., he clocked into work, and with two energy drinks powering him through the day, he and Sympson picked up the patient for transport.
He said that during the drive, the victim struck up an inappropriate conversation with him, and he showed her the picture. He then said she started to get “handsy,” and he didn’t try to stop her.
“I started to feel good, and I was debating with myself,” Rutherford told the jury. “I was caught between emotions. I didn’t know if I should stop it, I didn’t know how to stop it, and at the time, part of me didn’t want to stop it.”
Rutherford said that then and now, he knew what he did was wrong, but he didn’t believe it was rape.
“I thought I had assisted a married woman in violating the vows of her marriage,” Rutherford said. “And that I had brought great shame and embarrassment to the field I worked in and be cast out and lose my license. … I was worried about people finding out and most importantly, I was worried about losing my girlfriend.”
The trial is set to resume Thursday at 8 a.m. at the Montgomery County Courts Center with closing arguments and jury deliberation.