Try this link... if it doesn't work... go to the left side of the screen and click on Legal Resources.
http://www2.lymenet.org/domino/law.nsf/34bb600f91c4b4a9852565070004d48a?OpenView

Then there is the NY EMT who contracted Lyme from a patient who was covered in lice and bugs.. and fought like get out to get help.. and finally won! Denise Chapman... gotta love her spunk! Gotta love her! What a battle.. and she is one of my hero's.

I will try to check for OHIO cases later for you... but don't have time right now.

You can do a search here for info on Denise.. wait.. maybe I have it...

This is all I have in my file right now...

Hope it gives you ideas... NICE ones, Maddog.

AUGUST 04TH, 2000

After years of checking the vital signs of other people, former EMT Denise Chapman is
now spending most of her days monitoring her own. Chapman, 33, has been battling
advanced Lyme disease for more than four years. But along with fighting her illness,
Chapman says she's been fighting the Fire Department of New York as well.

"I can barely walk half the time, I have inflammation in all the nerves in my legs, my
heart EKGs go out of whack, and I can't breathe," Chapman says. "My liver is swollen
and part of my cervic is out."

The former EMT traces all of this suffering back to the day she was bitten by ticks that
were found on a homeless man she treated in May of 1996. Ticks carry the disease,
which can cause abnormalities to the heart and nervous system.

Not only is the FDNY refusing to pay her medical benefits, but Chapman says they fired
her two years ago because she was unable to work due to her illness.

"I lost my car and everything I owned," says Chapman. "My jewelry is all pawned - I have
nothing."

Chapman says she wants "Line of Duty" injury benefits similar to those granted to the
family of Tracey Allen Lee, a paramedic who contracted AIDS on the job and eventually
died from it in 1997. The city fought Lee literally until the day she died, then agreed to
grant "Line of Injury" benefits on the day of her funeral.

Like the department did in the early stages of the Lee case, FDNY officials contend that
Chapman didn't get Lyme on the job, since it was wasn't diagnosed until nine months
later. They told NY1 there's no record of her exposure to Lyme disease, or even ticks,
prior to 1997.

However, copies of department exposure reports obtained by NY1 and signed by a
supervisor in May of 1996, clearly show she was exposed to and bitten by ticks.

But the NYPD is holding firm on their stance. In a statement this week, the department
said: "While we are saddened by this former employee's illness, her claim was reviewed
first by the department and again by the Workers Compensation Board. In both cases it
was determined that her illness was not a result of a work-related injury or exposure."

That position angers the Paramedics' Union president.

"If she were a bad firefighter who was injured on the job, they would take care of her; if
she were a bad cop injured on the job, they would take care of her," says Pat Bahnken. "I
can't understand why this woman who lost her health in the service of this city is being
treated like yesterday's garbage"

Since she was bitten in 1996, Chapamn has been in the hosital 16 times for a variety of
treatments, operations and procedures. Her latest battle landed her at Lutheran Medical
Center last week. Her doctors say she will eventually recover from Lyme, even though
she was misdiagnosed early on.

Chapman says she is hiring a lawyer to appeal her case, in the hopes of getting her health
back.

"I used to dance," Chapman says. "Now I can hardly even laugh or even read a get well
card."

-Gary Anthony Ramsay

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

http://www.ny1.com/ny/TopStories/SubTopic/index.html?topicintid=1&subtopicintid=1
&contentintid=26458

Top Stories

Former EMT Awarded
Compensation For Contracting Lyme Disease On The Job

DECEMBER 11TH, 2002

After a five-year fight, New York State's Workers' Compensation Board voted Tuesday to
uphold a decision granting disability benefits to a former city EMT who has advanced
Lyme disease. NY1's Gary Anthony Ramsay, who covered Denise Chapman's original
claim in 2000, filed the following report:

The best gift Denise Chapman said she's received this year didn't come from family or
friends. Rather, it came from the New York State Workers' Compensation Board.

In a landmark eight-page decision released Tuesday, the body upheld Chapman's claim
that she caught Lyme disease while performing her job as an emergency medical
technician - making Chapman eligible for benefits that had been withheld from her for
five years.

NY1 first brought you her story in the summer of 2000. Three years into her fight with the city's Fire Department, she was seeking worker's compensation and disability benefits similar to those granted to Tracey Allen Lee, an EMT who died five years ago after contracting the AIDS virus from a patient.

Doctors diagnosed Chapman with Lyme disease in February of 1997, more than six
months after she treated a homeless man in the Bronx.

``I had found a few bugs on me that evening, including ticks,'' she said. ``Shortly after
that, I started getting very sick.''

Ticks are the chief carriers of the illness which attacks the brain, central nervous system and joints. It can be treated if caught early. But by the time Chapman's symptoms were confirmed, the disease was already advanced. She called in sick and missed work during almost all of 1997.

The next year, the Fire Department fired Chapman and denied her workers' compensation
benefits. All the time, the FDNY said there was no evidence that she had even been
exposed ticks while on the job.

But NY1 obtained a copy of an exposure report from May of 1996 signed by a supervisor who confirmed that Chapman had been bitten by ticks from her patient.

Earlier this year, a judge ruled in her favor, but again, the city appealed.

Chapman's mother, Roseanne Caputo, said the six-year legal fight made the health battle
worse.

``It's been like a nightmare, watching her be tortured, with needles stuck in her chest,''
Caputo said. ``She nearly bled to death once.''

But a break in the paper storm came Monday when the appeals board ruled that ``There is
no question that ticks bit the claimaint [Chapman] during the course of her employment, and the carrier [NYC] has not presented evidence against that fact."

City lawyers say they are disappointed with the ruling. Nevertheless, they must now give
Chapman back pay, medical expenses and disability.

Getting back her life will be much more difficult. She still has shunts in her chest for antibiotic IV's and she takes a cabinet-size amounts of medicine almost every day.
Hospital bills alone have peaked over half a million dollars and still, there is no cure for advanced Lyme.

``No amount of money would be worth my health,'' she said. ``I just want to be healthy. I'd like to one day get married, have children and just be normal."

--Gary Anthony Ramsay

I THINK Bird vs. a Country Club is a workers comp case... found under Lyme Net Legal Resources.

Maybe take a look see there?