LifeStar Ambulance seeks to drop lawsuit against Memorial

LifeStar Ambulance Service. Inc. has temporarily dropped its lawsuit against Springfield Memorial Hospital to gather proof of what LifeStar considers the hospital’s bias against the company.

“We’re still trying to find more evidence,” LifeStar Chief Executive Officer John Wright told Illinois Times. “We need more for a lawsuit.”

Associate Circuit Judge Christopher Perrin on June 30 granted LifeStar’s request to dismiss the case “without prejudice,” which means the company will have up to a year to refile the suit.

If LifeStar had decided to move forward with the case without enough evidence, Springfield Memorial could have asked for a dismissal, and LifeStar might be barred from refiling, Wright said.

“Hopefully, someday this all gets resolved,” Wright said.

LifeStar filed a civil lawsuit against Springfield Memorial on May 18 in Sangamon County Circuit Court to reverse the nonprofit hospital’s decision to remove LifeStar from Memorial’s emergency medical services system.

Because Springfield and Sangamon County officials require ambulance companies responding to 911 emergency calls to be part of a hospital-supervised EMS network, Springfield Memorial’s decision to suspend LifeStar, effective May 26, meant the company’s ambulances no longer would be allowed to respond to 911 calls in Springfield or elsewhere in the county.

Springfield Memorial officials have declined comment on the court case.

LifeStar had been part of Memorial’s network for years. The company was turned down for entry into the multi-county EMS system overseen by Springfield’s other acute-care hospital, HSHS St. John’s, Wright said.

He said Springfield Memorial overreacted when it expelled LifeStar for maintaining supplies of expired medicines in 2025 and for errors in documenting patient conditions.

Wright said LifeStar, which has served Springfield since 1988, fixed both problems. No patients received any expired medicines, and patient care was never compromised, he said.

LifeStar filed the lawsuit in May to prevent disruption in service to 911 patients throughout Sangamon County and financial disruption to the Centralia-based company, which also serves patients in and around Centralia and Jacksonville, Wright said.

But Sangamon County Circuit Judge Ryan Cadagin on May 22 turned down LifeStar’s request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction that would have stopped the hospital’s suspension from taking effect while the case continued in court.

The suspension by Springfield Memorial doesn’t affect 911 calls LifeStar responds to outside Sangamon County.

LifeStar owner Roger Campbell previously told IT, without providing details, that Springfield Memorial somehow “targeted” LifeStar. He said in May that the company hired a private investigator and received several responses to its Facebook post offering a $10,000 reward for “information leading to evidence regarding the unjust suspension and removal efforts” by Springfield Memorial.

Campbell said he was “appalled at the facts surrounding this issue,” and that LifeStar will contest the suspension “until hell freezes over.”

Wright said he didn’t know whether the hospital’s evaluation of LifeStar was influenced by the December 2022 death of Springfield resident Earl Moore Jr., 35.

Two former LifeStar employees, paramedic Peggy Finley and EMT Peter Cadigan, were charged with first-degree murder after they responded to a medical call at Moore’s home that culminated with Cadigan placing and strapping Moore face-down on a LifeStar gurney before Moore was transported to St. John’s.

The county coroner decided Moore died from suffocation because of being placed face-down, rather than the recommended face-up position, in the ambulance gurney, and because he was strapped down tightly.

Finley, 47, of Springfield, is awaiting trial, with the next court date in her case scheduled for Aug. 24.

Cadigan, 53, of Springfield, agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter in exchange for prosecutors dropping the murder charge. Circuit Judge Robin Schmidt sentenced Cadigan to the minimum – probation lasting two years and no prison time – on June 23.

LifeStar employed about 25 of its 65 employees through its Springfield office at 404 N. Second St. LifeStar didn’t lay off any employees after Springfield Memorial’s suspension took effect, Wright said. The company gave those employees the option of working out of the Centralia and Jacksonville offices, he said.

“We’re not giving up on being in Sangamon County,” Wright said.

Wright and Campbell previously said response times to 911 calls in Springfield would increase after LifeStar was suspended and the other two ambulance providers – nonprofit Medics First and for-profit America Ambulance – were left to pick up the slack.

A Springfield city ordinance says that if the number of ambulance providers drops from three to two, each of the two remaining providers must provide at least five ambulances at all times instead of three under the three-provider system.

But Springfield Fire Chief Nick Zummo, who has access to data from the Sangamon County Central Dispatch System, said, “We are still not seeing any increase in response times or increase in rigs unavailable.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include the outcome of the June 30 court hearing.