‘It was like a sharp stick in the eye’: Chittenango widow faces $1,750 ambulance bill after husband’s death

CHITTENANGO, N.Y. (WSYR-TV)– The day you lose your significant other is one of the most heart-wrenching days of your life. The last thing you want to think about is bills. But that’s what happened to one Chittenango woman.

Kathy Bodley abruptly said goodbye to her husband, Robert L. Bodley, whom she was married to for 49 years, on Aug. 20, 2026.

“I got up in the morning at 7:30 (a.m.), I think it was, and I went in, and he was lying on the floor. Then I called 911, and I said, ‘I think my husband is dead,’” said Bodley.

After grieving her husband for three weeks, she received an ambulance bill she was not expecting.

“They were in the bedroom for like 3 to 4 minutes, then they came out and talked to the police for a few minutes, and then they were outside. Then I got a bill in the mail for $1750 for what they did,” said Bodley.

Her husband didn’t have insurance, making this more difficult for Bodley. So now, instead of being able to focus solely on grieving, she’s left worrying about how to handle an ambulance bill.

“He had a VA; he had a Medicare part, but he didn’t need the rest because the VA took care of him…But the VA wouldn’t pick up this ambulance bill, because it wasn’t service-related,” said Bodley. “It was like a sharp stick in the eye. I said, ‘Oh my God,’ I just couldn’t believe it, that they wanted that much money for what they had done.”

NewsChannel 9 | LocalSYR.com reached out to the Madison County Emergency Medical Services to see what they could do to help, if anything.

“Madison County EMS follows standard EMS billing practices for all dispatched calls; all our billing is done through a third party. Prior to your email we had not heard about any questions or concerns with the bill that Mrs. Bodley received. We have reached out to Mrs. Bodley about the bill she received, explained it to her, and are working through it with her. Also, Madison County EMS has hardship policies and procedures in place that we can work through with clients in the event services are not covered by insurance and/or there are other circumstances.”

In their response, the county EMS mentioned a hardship policy that people can apply for, vut Bodley said they never mentioned this to her before.

“When I called there and told them to send the bill to the VA and if the VA didn’t cover it, I didn’t know who was gonna pay it. They didn’t mention anything; Now they tell me that we have a program out there for people that can’t afford it. So she sent me the form to fill out, and then you gotta go through all this rigmarole. I gotta dig out how much money I made. I gotta dig out my Social Security thing, etc.,” said Bodley. “I had to fill it out and what I would need to apply, and then they would go through different channels to see if they accepted me.”

Now Bodley hopes to figure all of this out with the hardship policy, and she hopes she can soon focus on grieving and remembering her husband.

Bodley said, “We love to motorcycle ride. I’d always be the one on the back, but we would just go for rides and not go anywhere; we would just ride. That was the best; I miss that.”