Patient drove ambulance and crashed into police car
An ambulance on an emergency call was driven off by the patient it was taking to hospital – who then crashed into a police car, a court was told.
The driver stopped over concerns about the behaviour of Simon Lewis. The 38-year-old patient escaped after opening the rear doors, but returned to the ambulance which had been left with the key in the ignition while the two man crew tried to catch him.
Lewis, of Wolverhampton, drove off with a paramedic hanging onto the moving vehicle for a few feet before being forced to let go. The defendant, who was on drugs, drove off leaving the paramedic lying in the street on May 15, Mr Gary Cooke, prosecuting, told Wolverhampton Crown Court.
Lewis, of Lennox Gardens, Merridale, drove the ambulance into a police car which tried to force it to stop, damaging both vehicles. He finally came to a halt in Green Lane, Walsall, after driving one and a half miles. He was then arrested. Lewis had been collected from a friend's flat in Bloxwich High Street where he had been behaving strangely after taking the drug Mcat, said Mr Cooke.
An emergency call was made and the ambulance was heading for Walsall Manor Hospital with one of the two man crew in the back with the patient.
Mr Cooke said: "En-route the defendant continued to behave erratically and the driver was asked by his colleague to pull over. The defendant pushed the ambulance man travelling with him out of the way, opened the rear doors and jumped out.
"The two crew were concerned for his safety and got out to try to usher him away from passing traffic. Lewis got in pushed the ambulance into gear and started to move forward. One of the ambulance men hung on to the vehicle and was dragged alongside for about ten feet."
Mr Gurdeep Garcha, defending, said Lewis suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and said: "A prison sentence would do little to address the underlying reason for his offending."
Lewis pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicle taking and assaulting the two ambulance men, neither of whom was badly hurt. He had spent ten weeks in custody on remand after breaking the terms of his bail.
He received a 16 month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with a 16 week night time curfew and a requirement that he receives mental health treatment. He was also banned from driving for a year.
Judge John Warner said: "People providing a vital public service should not have to put up with this sort of thing."
