Tom Hennessy - a Man of Honor, but How Will Anyone Know Now?

On January 11th, retired Southern Manatee Fire Chief om Hennessy was cleared of any wrong doing by the recent investigation of his pension pay out by Pension Board. After a thorough and lengthy investigation, Chief Mike Johnson could not find any wrong doing according to the policies set forth, the procedures or actions at the time of Chief Hennessy’s retirement. Yet, most all anyone will remember from this sordid media mess is that Hennessy was charged by the media and investigated by his own department for doing something wrong to get his million dollar plus pension payout.

Tom Hennessy’s reward after 25 years of stellar service to this county in the Southern Manatee Fire District is a name dragged through the mud because of false accusations brought against him by the UNION he promoted to his own department and a disgruntled, bitter Battalion Chief. Now that’s some way to honor great service isn’t it? That’s something to look forward to in this district if you do a good job: expect the piranha’s to chew you up, spit you out and then never apologize for lying about your good name. Tom Hennessy has been angry about this entire ordeal and with very good reason.

Leigh Hollins, formerly of Cedar Hammock, said it better than I ever could in a comment to one of my blogs, about Tom Hennessy’s pension:
“The pension board did nothing wrong, Hennessy did nothing wrong.


Union official (Merv) Kennell is quoted as saying, “if it was done right, we’d drop our objections” and “we don’t believe it’s ever occurred before”. Well Merv, it all checked out and you owe Hennessy an apology and you are right, it’s never occurred before…because Chief Hennessy is the first (my emphasis) employee to retire from Southern Manatee with a full 25 year plus pension.


What’s the problem here? The problem is there is a disgruntled Battalion Chief with a personal agenda (my emphasis). You want a story, check out his record at, and away from, the department…..and away from the fire department….it’s all public record.
In his eight years as chief, he and the board of fire commissioners, brought the department’s facilities up to standard, replacing outdated stations and building an administration center; he enhanced the pay and benefits of his firefighters and he obtained badly needed fire apparatus. From what he was told by the firefighters, the reason the firefighters joined the union (just as he was retiring) was because they wanted to “lock in” and secure the pay and benefits that he worked to obtain for them.


Chief Hennessy was also the “brainchild” of, and spearheaded, the Manatee County Emergency Services Memorial Fund, which was responsible for funding and building the beautiful Emergency Services Memorial in Rossi Park and whose perpetual fund provides financial relief to the families of Manatee County emergency personnel who are hurt or killed in the line of duty.


Make no mistake, those who chose to drag Chief Hennessy into a management/union struggle for their personal gain (my emphasis), including the Bradenton Herald and his accusers, should be thanking him for his service and you should all be ashamed. He deserves a public apology.”

Do you see a trend here? PERSONAL agends, PERSONAL gain. Will the Bradenton Herald print an apology for swallowing the bait from the Union hook line and sinker and then dragging Tom’s good name through the mud? Anytime a million dollars plus payout is talked about it can “look” dirty. No one wanted to discuss the 25 years of service. TWENTY FIVE YEARS as a firefighter in this county, working through mergers, interlocal agreements and chaos while managing to become a fire chief over one of the most controversial yet to become one of the best fire districts in the state. The Union strategy to sensationalize the amount of the pension to the general public and then indicate that it was “dirty” politics to tarnish a good man’s name AND everyone associated with him was successful, via the press. Hooray for the first amendment! This is where an editor should be a little more responsible and perhaps do investigative reporting instead of conviction reporting. There is a way to write objectively so that the public can make up their own minds about who’s saying what. I seriously doubt there’ll be any apologies forthcoming from the Bradenton Herald. it always falls under the guise of journalism.

Anonymous Strikes Again! No Guts, No Integrity, So What's New? NOTHING of course... It's all coming true!

It's so sad when what's predicted comes true and it's just not good for the department or district because it's so extremely obvious it all personal agenda's. While I've  watched this entire mess unfold in the Southern Manatee Fire District, I have  been dismayed at the audacity of Commissioner Mark Ruben and Battalion Chief Pete Donchenko, Jerry Bennett and Union President Merv Kennel. At the December Fire District Meeting, Fire Chief Foster Gover resigned with dignity.He has sat through these meetings listening to the charges being rattled off that mostly occured several years ago when he was in another position.He proffered up the solution to a bad situation full of some poor judgments that had cost him his position.   I would have sought relief from staying there too were I the chief.  Gover Foster left with dignity, and SMFD has mud on it's face as there are just as many lower ranking people guilty of the same things the chief was found guilty of.

Yet they're too busy going back over my old posts and correcting me and then continuing to pick at me with ANONYMOUS posts about facts they think I misconveyed about my own physical condition during an event in which I depended on the services of the SMFD. (Trust me, THAT won't ever happen again! EVER.)  Once again, Anonymous just doesn't have any backbone to sign their name! Seems to me there aren't any backbones, integrity and guts in all the anonymous posters who have to HIDE behind ANONYMOUS! Lots to say but nothing to own. Just cowardly.  In this case, it may be an EMT, in which case, what was the point except to pick on medical technicalities.

Just a little fyi... your heart rate cannot be 70/38. Your blood pressure can be though. Oh and we dont give epinephrine for symptomatic bradycardia (which is what your attempting to describe) we give atropine. And I love my brothers at SMFR, however they dont tell "EMTs" what is needed on a call. SMFR are first responders and trained EMTs. The people who gave you medicine and made the decision to transport you were an ALS (advanced life support) team. This means one charge paramedic and either one EMT or a second paramedic. I dont know enough about the politics of all of this to make any comment on that. However if your posting facts, then light needed to be shed on your mistakes when it came to EMS and your treatment. Anonymous.

First off to Anonymous, thank you, you are correct about the heart rate as I miswrote in my haste and have since corrected it. But, were you there at my house when the ambulance showed up with the personnel at my door? (I'm sorry but I'm not going to attempt to try to keep straight everyone's individual potential titles! To me an EMT is in an ambulance and I happen to know SMFD train their firefighters to be EMT's and first responders too.) Were you there when the firefighters greeted them at my door? They doublechecked the same things the firefighters had done and got all the same readings on my blood pressure and then mutually helped each other get the stretcher and me together as my front entrance isn't very conducive to it. Were YOU the one who was administering the ECG to me in the ambulance and couldn't get a good reading so that after the third attempt, I finally asked why the confused look and you explained "too much noise" on the reading, so then I explained the internal tremors (ANOTHER MS factor!) that no one see but I can feel. And that's when the injection came out for my IV site and my blood pressure suddenly jumped to "normal" so we could proceed on to the hospital. I ASKED what that was and was told, epinephrine. I always ask as an informed patient is better off than one who isn't.

But now you tell me you would never do that so I'm intrigued. I researched it and found this: "...so bradycardia and salivation are unwanted side-effects. It is much more appropriate to give atropine (or glycopyrrolate), which deals with all the parasympathetic side-effects, than it is to give epinephrine, which deals only with the bradycardia. Epinephrine is very short-acting, and needs to be given by infusion for a sustained effect, whereas a single injection of atropine often has sufficient duration. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090510012718AANHm7q " 

Since I wasn't having a full blown heart failure and only experiencing the bradycardia, then, I believe the personnel did the right thing! Epenephrine- short term stabilization for the trip to the hospital. It was shot into my IV too (which if I remember correctly is by infusion so that appears accurate also).  Had I not had tremors he probably could have seen my heart was fine and not shot me with anything. You're arguing MY HEALTH with me which anyone who knows me, isn't wise. Even my doctors know they've got to explain themselves cos I don't blindly follow unless I understand. So please, for brevity, I was simply making a complimentary point to the good service I got. But, that won't happen again.