What would you do?

I would have done exactly the same. In fact as a retired police officer I have done this on more than one occasion. Obviously it all depends on the type of illness/injury. Not really practical for serious RTC injuries and the like. With the situation in the UK at present where the arrival time of an ambulance cannot be certain (through no fault of the crews who are probably already dealing with something) then I think it's the safest thing to do although you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, depending on the outcome.

Give him a medal! A great big one. Brave man for flouting any American " rules and regs", this is the most litigious country on earth, but he did what any brave, trained individual would have done. Heaven knows what would have happened if the child had died, but happily she didn't, and one can only hope that his suspension is brief.

(Off topic, if he is only 35, he seriously needs some dietary guidance, could be the next emergency!)

Sadly, our country is heading the same way.  If one has a first aid certificate one has a degree of protection against litigation - provided one carries out proceedures only as currently specified. 

However, if one does NOT have such a certificate the courts base their judgement on what a responsible person might do in the circumstances.

Yes, I agree with Grumpy.  Having been in the same position as him. I still drive an ambulance car on blues and twos and would do the same now if I had permission from control but as Steve says, it all depends on the circumstances.

Isuspect this is one of those over-hyped reporting stories about how 'crazy the Fire dept were' for suspending him, whereas he was suspended as a matter of procedure if a given set of guidelines were broken, which needs to be investigated correctly before they can pat him on the back properly.

There are a large set of circumstances that will trigger the same thing here for the emergency services, that taken out of context seem mad and unfair, but on closer analysis make sense.

In some countries, you could get a fire tender turning up for a medical emergency anyway as they're trained in that field as well as fire fighting.

When I was visiting my stepson in N Carolina some years back, there was a medical emergency at a property across the road. Big fire truck shows up first as apparently they are always the first responder to a 911.

This country was the same when ambulance crews had worked on crash victims (and in most cases saved their lives) and were then fired from their jobs.  Hence the coming of paramedics

This kind of thing happens in this country too!  My son (a roofer) with long ladders on the top of his van, saw a house fire - and offered to go up and take a baby from the woman hanging out of the window where smoke was pouring through - making sure his apprentice 'footed' the ladder, of course.  He was told 'No' by the police who were already there, who said they should just wait for the fire brigade.

I'm afraid that he disobeyed the police order (supported by the crowd), put the ladder up, got the baby down, and the lady climbed down the ladder!  He got a real bollocking not a medal!