Metro

NYC medic helped ‘make ends meet’ with racy OnlyFans side gig

A young NYC paramedic says she is so cash-strapped from her low-paying ambulance job that she moonlighted by selling online access to erotic photos and videos of herself.

Lauren Caitlyn Kwei, 23, works for  SeniorCareEMS, an ambulance company serving hospitals in the city’s 911 system. She also posted images on her OnlyFans account, where subscribers can see her in  lingerie — or in the buff — for fees starting at $11.99 a month.

“The bottom line: I don’t get paid a lot. I’m just trying to make ends meet,” Kwei told The Post. “I truly don’t think this has anything to do with being a paramedic.”

Dozens of celebrities have joined the mostly racy OnlyFans platform, with some stars reeling in big bucks.

“Pay up or mind your own business!” Kwei, using the handle lau@lauuu, blared on her sexually suggestive site.

The 5-foot-2, 120-pound West Virginia transplant began posting content in August 2019. A subscriber to Kwei’s site found 32 posts on Nov. 25, including a photo showing her topless while posing with a sex toy, and videos in which she gyrates in a red bra and panties while The Weeknd’s hit tune “Shameless” blares.

Kwei defended her side gig. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t affect how I treat people. What I do in my free time is my business. It has no effect on how I care for my patients. I know when I’m working, I’m a paramedic. I think I’m pretty good at my job.”

Kwei added, “There are plenty of people who are medical professionals who have every right to do what they want with their own bodies. I’m not doing it at work. Health care workers aren’t making a lot of money. And I’m not the only one trying to make ends meet.”

Kwei moved to New York in 2015 to “pursue the performing arts,” and graduated in May 2017 from The American Musical and Dramatic Academy, a private conservatory on the Upper West Side whose alumni include singer Jason Derulo and actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson. She said she studied musical theater.

Lauren Caitlyn Kwei shown promoting her OnlyFans account on social media.
Lauren Caitlyn Kwei shown promoting her OnlyFans account on social media Twitter

Kwei, who lives in the Bronx, started auditioning, she said, but soon realized she “didn’t like showbiz” and “wasn’t giving back to my community.”

Kwei started EMT school in September 2017 and graduated the following February.

In March 2018, Kwei started working for SeniorCare EMS as an EMT making minimum wage — about $15 an hour, she said. After a year on the job, she stopped working temporarily to complete paramedic training at the Center for Allied Health Education, which charges $13,200 in tuition.

As a paramedic, Kwei earns $25 an hour, she told The Post. Private ambulance companies generally pay much less than big hospitals, or the FDNY’s Emergency Medical Service, where paramedics start at $48,237 annually and make $65,226 in base salary before overtime after five years.

“The pay is pretty crappy,” another paramedic said of rookie jobs with private ambulance companies. “It’s where you go to get experience.”

Kwei also worked as a hostess at an upscale Korean steakhouse to help pay her bills.

Kwei was not secretive about her online exploits. She made her last name known in her Instagram timeline, and her Twitter handle, @FoxxyLlama,  said “NYC paramedic” along with a solicitation for “Only Fans.” 

After Kwei first spoke to The Post, she deleted at least seven OnlyFans posts, including an offer to watch a “16 sec shower” video for $10. After Nov. 27, she locked her Twitter and Instagram accounts, and omitted the reference to OnlyFans in her Twitter profile. As of Friday, all her OnlyFans posts were deleted.

“I know SeniorCare would deem this ‘inappropriate’ so I took it down in the hopes that I won’t lose my job in the middle of a pandemic and three weeks before Christrmas,” Kwei texted. She said SeniorCare had asked to meet with her.

A veteran FDNY paramedic agreed that EMT pay is paltry, but blasted Kwei’s choice of a side career.

“Other EMTs and paramedics make more money by pulling extra shifts, instead of pulling off their clothes,” he said.

On SeniorCare’s website, the descriptions of all jobs forbid “inappropriate conduct, on and off duty.” The requirements include: Adheres to standards of personal ethics, on and off duty, which reflect credit upon the profession.”

SeniorCare representatives did not respond to multiple requests for comment.