Daniel Lee Fanning
Introduction
Daniel Lee Fanning, a 44-year-old former paramedic with Anderson County EMS in South Carolina, was charged October 2, 2026 with first-degree assault and battery over a December 2025 incident in which, according to an arrest warrant, he injured a patient by touching the victim’s private parts without consent and with lewd intent while on an emergency call. Fanning had already been fired by the county eight months earlier, in January 2026, after its internal investigation found he had falsified EMS documentation. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division made the arrest at the request of the Pendleton Police Department.
Background Information
Fanning worked as a paramedic for Anderson County EMS. According to the county, officials were notified of the assault allegation in December 2025, after the incident — which occurred while Fanning was on a call. Under South Carolina’s regulatory framework, an allegation alone was not grounds for the state to pull his certification, so his paramedic credential remained technically intact while the county ran its own investigation.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Charged, fired. Fanning faces a first-degree assault and battery charge filed October 2, 2026. The charge is unadjudicated and he is presumed innocent; his January 2026 termination, by contrast, was an employment decision based on the county’s own findings.
The arrest warrant alleges that on December 22, 2025, Fanning injured a victim by touching the victim’s private parts without consent, with lewd intent — conduct alleged to have occurred while he was on an EMS call. While Anderson County EMS investigated that allegation, officials said, the review surfaced a separate problem: Fanning had falsified EMS documentation. The county terminated him immediately on January 4, 2026. SLED’s criminal investigation, requested by Pendleton police, resulted in the October 2 charge; Fanning was booked into the Anderson County Detention Center.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case landed in the Upstate in early October alongside SLED’s announcement, with FOX Carolina reporting the sequence — December allegation, January firing for falsified records, October criminal charge — and the county’s explanation of why the credential had survived the interim: because it was, at the time, only an allegation. The arrest warrant’s account of an assault on a patient who had called for help, allegedly by the paramedic sent to help them, gave the story its sting in a community that depends on county EMS.
Current Status
Fanning was booked into the Anderson County Detention Center following his October 2, 2026 arrest. No plea or trial date has been reported, and the charge remains pending. State licensing records, FOX Carolina reported, still showed him holding an active paramedic certification expiring December 15, 2029 — a document trail that now sits awkwardly beside a pending felony and a January termination.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Fanning lost his paramedic job in January 2026 for falsified documentation, and October’s felony charge forecloses any return to emergency medicine in South Carolina regardless of the criminal outcome: a first-degree assault and battery conviction carries up to ten years, and the underlying allegation — an assault on a patient during a call — is the kind of finding that ends certifications as well as careers. A man whose job was to respond to the worst moments of strangers’ lives is now the subject of the warrant describing his own alleged assault on one of them.
Sources
- FOX Carolina, “Anderson County EMS: Former paramedic fired for falsified reports before assault charge” — source