Hundreds of West Midlands ambulances involved in crashes
More than 450 ambulances in the West Midlands have been involved in crashes in the last three years, new figures have revealed.
A total of 456 were involved in accidents responding to emergency calls since 2013.
The figures, obtained through a freedom of information (FOI) request, are for 2013/14, 2014/15 and 2015/16 relating to West Midlands Ambulance Service (WMAS) ambulances which have been involved in an accident or collision when responding to an emergency call.
For 2014/15 there were 185, some 55 more than the 130 in 2013/14.
The freedom of information request also revealed that 112 vehicles belonging to WMAS that weren't ambulances were also involved in crashes when responding to emergency calls.
This figure includes 37 in 2013/14, 49 in 2014/15 and 26 so far for 2015/16.
The service's FOI team was unable to state if there were injuries or fatalities in these 500 or so crashes as they say they do not hold that information.
In 2013 an ambulance overturned on Penn Road in Wolverhampton when it was on its way to a care home after reports that a resident had fallen unconscious.
The ambulance is suspected to have a hit a tree which caused it to overturn near the Mount Pub and narrowly miss a woman and her young daughter who had stopped in the road just yards from where the ambulance landed.
Despite being outside this particular time scale, in 2009 an internal investigation was launched after a 72-year-old was killed following a collision with a WMAS rapid response vehicle in Staffordshire.
The vehicle, which had its emergency lights flashing and its sirens blaring when the accident happened, collided with a blue Ford KA on the A51 in Lichfield.
The woman was pronounced dead at the scene as the driver of the WMAS vehicle was taken to Stafford Hospital by ambulance after suffering minor chest and abdominal injuries.
In a statement West Midlands Ambulance Service said: "Our crews are highly trained in blue-light driving to respond to life and death situations where every seconds counts, but they rely on the help of other road users. The majority of collisions are down to other drivers either panicking when they hear a siren or see a blue light, or not being aware of blue-light vehicles using the road."
