Tuesday, January 17, 2012  A firefighter in Carroll County was injured Monday night when he was hit by a car while trying to help victims of a car crash.

The incident occurred about 10:30 p.m. at the intersection of Sandymount Road and Patapsco Road in Finksburg.

The chief of the Reese & Community Volunteer Fire Company said the firefighter, who hasn't been identified, was helping crash victims when he was hit by a car that was sliding on the road.

The firefighter was taken to Shock Trauma. There's currently no word on his condition.

WBALTV.com and WBAL-TV 11 News with have more details when they are made available.

Monday, January 16, 2012  LANSING TOWNSHIP - An ambulance is involved in a serious accident in Lansing Township Monday afternoon. News 10's Jason Colthorp was nearby and says that the ambulance and another car were involved. It appears the ambulance also struck a telephone pole. Jason reports that two of the medics in the ambulance were taken to the hospital. A patient was in the ambulance, but it's unknown what happened to that person. Jason is hearing that the driver of the other car involved was not hurt. The crash happened at about 12:30PM on the east side of Lansing along Grand River Avenue and North Howard Avenue, close to US 127. News 10 is getting more information on exactly what happened. Stay with wilx.com and watch News 10 tonight for an update. 

Saturday, January 14, 2012  One man in Elkton allegedly took police on an ambulance chase Friday afternoon.

On Thursday night, Gregory Hammer went to a 7-11, and when he pulled out money to pay, drugs allegedly also fell out. A worker at the 7-11 called police, and authorities say Hammer ran away.

Once police caught up to Hammer, it took several officers to subdue and taser Hammer.

Then Hammer was transported to Rockingham Memorial Hospital for injuries sustained from an earlier incident.

Police are charging Hammer with drunk in public, possession of a scheduled 4 drug, and resisting arrest.

Friday afternoon, Hammer allegedly stole an ambulance from RMH and proceeded to lead the Sherrif’s Department and Elkton police on a chase down 33 East onto RT 340 towards Island Ford.

The ambulance got stuck a dirt road, and police say that Hammer then got out of the vehicle and continued the chase on foot.

Police apprehended Hammer and arrested him. Hammer is awaiting more charges.

 

Saturday, January 14, 2012  An EMS crew spoke out on Wednesday night after lightning struck near the ambulance they were riding in.

According to Rural/Metro officials, the ambulance was transporting a patient to a local hospital on Cruze Road in Powell when the lightning struck. 

Everyone was okay, but the crew said they had some scary moments. 

"It kind of hit off to the right side, the passenger side of the truck. and it immediately made the inside just bright white and the truck actually died for 2 or 3 seconds," said EMT Justin Walsch. 

The EMT's were able to get the ambulance started again and took the patient to a North Knoxville medical center. Afterwards Mechanics checked out the ambulance to make sure it was okay. 

One of the paramedics said she has worked in emergency response for 20 years and this was the first time she has ever experienced a lightning strike. 

Saturday, January 14, 2012  The ambulance driver who died in a head-on collision in Buckingham on Friday was laid to rest Tuesday in Augusta County. Timothy Kyle Southern, 21, was driving for Priority Patient Transport, but he was also a longtime volunteer for the Waynesboro First Aid Crew.

It was an impressive display of sorrow and solidarity among emergency volunteers from Buckingham to Culpeper, Fluvanna to Churchville. The procession went from the Waynesboro First Aid Crew to McDow Funeral Home and then to Augusta Memorial Park, Kyle Southern's final resting place.

Seemingly, all of Waynesboro and Augusta turned out to say goodbye to Kyle Southern. Leaving the first aid headquarters for the last time, Southern was followed by dozens of ambulances and fire trucks from both sides of the Blue Ridge.

Waynesboro First Aid Crew President Susan Sweet said, "We're all very saddened. We're shocked at the loss of Kyle. We lost one of our own. We lost a son and a brother as well."

Southern joined the Waynesboro First Aid Crew as a junior member at the age of 17 and was a jubilant part of the family.

Sweet stated, "Kyle was always laughing and joking and smiling. He was always the one making the rest of us feel better us, his patients, everybody."

The tribute included a graveside service, United Fire and Rescue volunteers in dress uniforms, family members, and hundreds of friends and community members. It ended with a symbolic release of balloons.

Southern died in Buckingham County on Friday when his ambulance crossed the center line and collided with a cement truck. Howard Watson, a patient being transported, was also killed. Virginia State Police are still looking into the cause of the crash. 

Saturday, January 14, 2012  By Alexandra Paul

The families of the two Melita paramedics injured in a head-on crash that killed one man a week ago released a statement of thanks through the Health Sciences Centre Thursday.

Gene Banks and Rick Bugg were the two paramedics who were escorting a patient at the time of the crash on Jan. 5. It took place at about 6 p.m. approximately five kilometers north of Souris on Highway 250.

A 54-year-old Souris man was pronounced dead at the scene. The patient was in stable condition following the crash.

"Words cannot describe the overwhelming feeling of love and support we have received since the accident. We are sure to pass every prayer and wish that we receive to Rick (Bugg) and Gene (Banks)," their families said.

Thursday, Banks was reported in stable condition and showing strength and determination. Buggs, who was released the day after the crash was described as recovering and a pillar of support for his partner.

"Rick is by Gene's side and is a rock for our family to lean on during this difficult time," the families said.

"To all emergency crew and everyone who fought that day and every day since, our family is blessed with all you have done. We will forever be grateful. Thank you to everyone for keeping our family in your thoughts and prayers."

The ambulance was traveling north, transporting a patient from Melita to Brandon in a non-emergency call when the crash occurred.

Police said a southbound Kia Spectra crossed the center line into the path of the ambulance.

Police ruled out speed and alcohol as factors in the crash.

Paramedics said at the time that the incident was a reminder to the public to be cautious near emergency vehicles.

Saturday, January 14, 2012  Snow created some havoc along a stretch of I-75 in southern Madison County Thursday evening. There were four accidents within miles of each other, one involving an ambulance.

Two semis jackknifed just a few miles apart, an ambulance flipped and a police cruiser crashed responding to the scene.

Witnesses say a Bell County ambulance lost control and rolled several times.

"The woman was still in her seat, and the man was in the driver's seat, of course, and they had been tussled around. Everything in there was in complete disarray; just everything was out of place in there," Robby Stokes said.

Officials say the husband and wife EMS workers were taken to UK Hospital. There was no word on their conditions.

A Berea police officer heading toward the crash scene was reportedly forced off the road by a truck, taking the cruiser out of service. 

Thursday, January 12, 2012  By Tom Liddy

STATEN ISLAND — An EMS medic was seriously injured during an ambulance crash in Oakwood Heights Wednedsay afternoon, authorities said.

The smash-up unfolded on Clawson Street and Princeton Avenue just before 12:45 p.m., the FDNY said.

Sources said the FDNY ambulance, which was not moving at the time of the accident, was struck by another vehicle.

The medic was rushed to Staten Island University Hospital South Campus in serious condition.

It was not immediately clear if there was criminality involved in the crash or how it occurred.

Thursday, January 12, 2012 

In his younger days, Bob Lee conquered continents. But as the 84-year-old Nevadan shuffled slowly to the podium in a federal courtroom Wednesday, his vitality seemed as lifeless as the big game he used to fell.

Lee, a safari guide, conservationist and outfitter, was sentenced for grabbing the breast of a paramedic who accompanied him on a medical flight to the Mayo Clinic in September 2010. When she complained, he told her: "I can do whatever I want. This is my airplane."

U.S. Chief Magistrate Arthur Boylan told Lee when he sentenced him that there was no excuse - not old age, not infirmity, not dementia - for the crime Lee committed.

"It's arrogant, it's repugnant, and it's offensive, period," Boylan told Lee.

Lee pleaded guilty in July to a single misdemeanor count of assault and could have faced up to six months in jail. Boylan accepted a sentence that both sides negotiated: Lee will be on probation for 180 days, pay a $5,000 fine and at least $431 in restitution, and write a letter of apology to the paramedic and nurse he assaulted and threatened aboard his Gulfstream Aerospace G-1159A.

He must spend 30 days of his probation on home detention. In his case, home is a 6,091-square-foot, $1.2 million residence on 10.2 acres with its own lake about seven miles south of downtown Reno. He also owns a $25 million mansion on an island on Flathead Lake in Montana.

In fact, he owns the island.

Lee also was ordered to serve 60 hours of community service with the Nevada Humane Society.

The paramedic he assaulted, identified in court as "M.L.," had agreed to the plea bargain and sentence. The woman, dressed in a blue AeroCare Air Ambulance jumpsuit, sat next to Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Provinzino during the proceedings. She took a turn at the podium to tell Boylan how Lee's behavior harmed her.

"I'm offended...(that) he felt he had the right to do whatever he wanted with me," she said. She was particularly critical of Lee's claim to a psychiatrist that the women "were mean to me" and had shoved him, which the women denied. Lee later recanted the claim.

As M.L. spoke, sometimes through tears, it seemed evident Lee's words had added to the sting of his actions.

"Not only does he have the audacity to believe he can do whatever he wants on his airplane, now he has the audacity to insult my integrity," the woman said.

Lee has been described as an avid explorer, and he's also a writer, conservationist and safari guide. Under the name Hunting World, he had a line of safari-ready luggage sold at its own posh boutique in New York. (He later sold the company.)

Lee claims to have led expeditions in 17 countries, and his luggage catalogs often depicted him in some remote and exotic corner of the globe.

For his part, Lee said nothing during the hearing except, "No thank you, Your Honor, please," when Boylan asked him if he had anything to say before sentencing. But his lawyer, Scott Freeman of Reno, read a letter of apology he said Lee had written.

"It was inappropriate, and I accept responsibility for my actions," the letter said, among other things.

"This is, without a doubt, an aberration. He is not a gentleman who goes around doing this sort of thing," Freeman said of Lee. "Everyone is shocked by this behavior."

Indeed, before sentencing, Freeman filed 13 letters from coast to coast from people who said Lee was a great guy. The writers included a state lawmaker, a minister, a former federal prosecutor, an executive at Sotheby's auction house, a California vintner, business executives and Lee's personal-fitness trainer since 2004.

"In my experience with Mr. Lee, I find the incident in question to be highly out of character for him," wrote the trainer, Melissa Zeffer of Stateline, Nev. "I have spent a lot of time with Mr. Lee, and I think that he is a very polite, dignified, respectful and nice man."

TRAPPED ON MANSION DETENTION

That was not the behavior M.L. told Boylan she saw during the flight Sept. 21, 2010. She recounted how she was called after Lee wound up in the emergency room with a medical problem and decided to get an examination at Mayo in Rochester, Minn.

She said that she and a nurse, identified in court documents as "M.D.," boarded Lee's $37 million jet at the airport in Show Low, Ariz., for the 1,100-mile flight to Rochester and that it was uneventful - Lee had even fallen asleep reading a newspaper - until the last 45 minutes.

M.L. said that when Lee returned from using the lavatory, he came up to her and grabbed her right breast, pinching and twisting hard. She pushed his hand away and told him he wasn't to touch her like that.

"He looked me straight in the eye and said I was on his airplane, he could do whatever he wanted to me," she told the judge.

He then reached across the aisle and made a pinching gesture at M.D., telling her, "That's what I'm going to do to you."

M.D. told him he wasn't allowed to touch the medical personnel in that way, and he replied, "On my airplane, I can do whatever I want."

Lee also told the nurse she should wear a V-neck shirt to make it easier for him to slide his hand in her shirt.

When the plane returned to Nevada after dropping off Lee, M.L. told the FBI about the assault. It was considered a federal crime because it occurred aboard an airplane flying over the United States.

Freeman told Boylan that Lee was in the "beginning stages of dementia," but the judge said he didn't believe "dementia or the fact you're a senior" were excuses for the crime.

He said he was adding the 30 days of home detention to the sentence so Lee would feel, in some way, the same sense of being trapped that the paramedic and nurse said they felt aboard Lee's private jet.

"I wanted you to get the message that you can't treat people like that," Boylan said.

David Hanners can be reached at 612-338-6516. 

Thursday, January 12, 2012  By Andrew Knapp
The Post and Courier

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A 26-year-old man who jumped from an SUV on Interstate 95 near Walterboro later tried to leap from the helicopter taking him to a hospital Saturday evening, forcing the aircraft to land.

Altoro Alveriz was a back-seat passenger in a Ford Expedition around 6:45 p.m., according to the Colleton County Sheriff's Office. Two other men in the vehicle said they were laborers who had finished work in Denmark and were heading south, back to Florida.

Around mile marker 60 on I-95, just north of the Bells Highway interchange, the vehicle's other occupants said they were listening to music and joking around when they heard a rear window being rolled down, according to the incident report. Then they saw Alveriz climbing through it.

Their attempts to catch Alveriz by his shirt failed, and the man fell onto the pavement, they told deputies. The Ford was traveling about 70 mph, they estimated.

Alveriz's head was bleeding when rescuers arrived. A LifeNet helicopter later started to take Alveriz to Medical University Hospital when he became combative with paramedics about five minutes into the flight.

"The guy broke loose and was fighting with the crew, which is dangerous with that small helicopter," said Barry McRoy, director of Colleton County Fire and Rescue. "They had to wrestle with a guy in a helicopter. ... It had the potential to be a bad situation."

Deputies said Alveriz attempted to jump out of the helicopter, which promptly landed at Lowcountry Regional Airport. McRoy said deputies and paramedics then fitted Alveriz with a sleeve that prevented him from moving his arms and legs.

He was then taken by ambulance to the Charleston hospital, where he was placed under intensive care. His condition Monday was not known.

None of the medics were injured.

Alveriz's co-workers told sheriff's investigators that he had been visibly upset earlier in the day, after placing a phone call to someone from Mexico.

They said he started drinking Bud Light and had been consuming the beer "all day," the report said.

Sheriff's investigators said Alveriz's two co-workers continued their trip to north Florida.



 

Tuesday, January 10, 2012  By Ann Bryant

WILTON – A Wilton woman faces several charges after assaulting family members, a police officer, a paramedic and damaging a Wilton police cruiser Sunday.

Kelly Hall, 32, was arrested on four charges including three counts of domestic assault, assault to a paramedic, criminal mischief and refusing to submit to arrest.

When Wilton Officer Timothy Coombs with backup from Deputy Sandy Burke of Franklin County Sheriff's Department responded to a domestic violence call just before 1 p.m. Sunday, the officers were concerned that Hall needed medical attention and called in NorthStar, Police Chief Heidi Wilcox said Monday.

During treatment, she assaulted the paramedic, Wilcox said. The paramedic received a minor injury.

The officers put her into the police cruiser where she kicked out a back seat window, damaged another window and a door, she said.

Hall kept trying to climb out the window. While trying to subdue her and keep her in the car, she kicked Burke who also received a minor injury.

Farmington police were called in to assist and placed Hall in their cruiser to take her to Franklin Memorial Hospital for a physical evaluation. Once released, police transported her to Franklin County Detention Center, Wilcox said.

The family members were not injured in the incident.

The cruiser is currently disabled and at Hilltop Collision Center being evaluated, Wilcox said.

abryant@sunjournal.com 

Tuesday, January 10, 2012  Buckingham Co., VA - State police have pieced together what happened in an accident on Route 20 that killed two people Friday.

Virginia State Police officials say a private ambulance driver hit a cement truck. No charges will be filed because police say the ambulance driver was at fault.

That driver, Timothy Southern of Waynesboro, died at the scene.

An elderly passenger of the ambulance, Howard Watson, 82, was flown to UVA but later died.

Another person on board, medical technician Heath Davis is in stable condition.

The driver of the cement truck wasn't injured. 

Tuesday, January 10, 2012   State police investigators are waiting for autopsy results on an ambulance driver killed Buckingham County.Timothy Southern, 21, was driving a Priority Patient Transport ambulance Friday when police say he crossed the center line and smashed into a cement truck. Southern died along with Howard Watson, the patient being transported.

All ambulance drivers are required to go through state-certified training before getting behind the wheel.

Michael Berg of the Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services said, "That information becomes public information and we can utilize that information for training purposes and education to better build upon the events that occurred to educate individuals so this type of event may not occur again."

Both victims are being laid to rest Monday. A state police spokesperson says the autopsy report may take a few weeks.

Monday, January 9, 2012  FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- An ambulance driver ended up needing help after a roll-over crash in West Central Fresno.

The accident happened around 11 o'clock Saturday night near Clinton and Marks.

Fresno police briefly closed part of the intersection while crews flipped the ambulance back onto its wheels. A tow truck then took it away.

No word yet on whether anyone was hurt in the crash.





 

Saturday, January 7, 2012  By Jillian Austin

A head-on highway crash between an ambulance and a car has left the communities of Souris and Melita reeling.

A 54-year-old Souris man was pronounced dead at the scene Thursday night, and two Melita paramedics were sent to hospital with serious injuries. The patient being transported in the ambulance at the time of the crash is in stable condition.

"It always shakes the town up when someone local is involved in any sort of accident," said Souris Mayor Darryl Jackson. "It's just a real tragic situation."

The crash happened Thursday around 6 p.m., about five kilometres north of Souris on Highway 250. An ambulance was travelling north, transporting a patient from Melita to Brandon in a non-emergency call. Police said a southbound Kia Spectra crossed the centre line into the path of the ambulance.

The driver of the ambulance was taken to a Winnipeg hospital with critical injuries. By Friday afternoon, he was listed in guarded condition in the surgical intensive care unit at Health Sciences Centre, said Louise Stitt, emergency medical services manager with the Assiniboine Regional Health Authority.

The other paramedic was released from hospital Friday morning.

RCMP said speed and alcohol are not considered factors in the crash. They continue to investigate.

Melita Mayor Bob Walker said the community is extremely saddened by the news.

"I was notified immediately by one of the families involved that they just got word... It was a shock," he said. "Ours is a volunteer ambulance service."

The emergency vehicle involved in the crash was the only ambulance stationed in Melita. The ARHA has provided the town with a spare unit.

Stitt was one of the paramedics who responded to the collision, driving in from her home in Oak Lake.

"It's never an easy thing to respond to your own staff, or for the staff from Rivers, Souris, and Hartney that were on scene to respond to their co-workers," she said. "We recognize that it is part of our job... At the same time, it's one situation that we'd just as soon not have to deal with terribly often.

"I have to put my armour up to ensure my personal feelings don't extend past my ability to provide the best care possible."

The ARHA is providing critical incident stress counselling for those involved.

"You like to think that you're somewhat invulnerable because, you have all these lights and all this metal and so on around you, that people will see you, notice you, and you won't be in harm's way... but you know bad things happen to good people sometimes, and we have to take it in stride," Stitt said.

The ambulance would have been travelling at a normal rate of speed and without flashing lights or a siren, as it was a non-emergency transport, Stitt said.

The patient being transferred was on a stretcher at the time of the collision, Stitt said, and the attendant would have been seated on a "squad bench." There are provisions for the attendant to be belted in when not providing direct patient care. Stitt did not know if the attendant was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the collision.

Jodi Possia, chairwoman of the Paramedic Association of Manitoba, said the incident is a reminder to the public to be cautious near emergency vehicles.

"We want the public to remain vigilant when they're passing and approaching emergency vehicles on our roadways," she said. "We have paramedics who are standing in the middle of intersections and are on the sides of busy highways across Manitoba. It's extremely dangerous. We're very vulnerable in those instances, but we're trying to be as safe as we possibly can."

On Monday, a Winnipeg paramedic was injured after being hit by a suspected drunk driver.

"We now have three paramedics in the last week that are recovering from injuries sustained in motor-vehicle collisions. Our hearts go out to the family who are mourning the loss of a loved one in a tragic incident," Possia said. "It absolutely is terrible."