By EMS1 Staff
OKLAHOMA CITY — One person is in custody after stealing an ambulance.
KFOR reported that a person got into the driver side of an ambulance outside an emergency room while EMSA paramedics were taking the patient inside.
The keys were in the ambulance.
Police tracked the rig through GPS and were forced to use stop sticks. Director of Regional Medical Response System for EMSA Heather Yazdanipour said that while there are policies in place to prevent ambulances from being stolen, they were not followed.
“Unfortunately, in this day and age, we do have to worry about people stealing our ambulance and use them for alternative uses. So, we do have mechanisms in place that actually allow our vehicle operators to remove the keys out of the vehicle and lock it, but it will stay running,” Yazdanipour said. “It’s just in this particular case, those procedures were not followed due to the condition of the patient. They completely forgot about the keys, were focused on patient care and getting them into the hospital and left hose keys in the vehicle.”
An investigation into the incident is ongoing.