By EMS1 Staff
QUILCENE, Wash. — A volunteer ambulance crew was ticketed for failing to stop at a toll booth while transporting a critically ill patient to the hospital, it emerged this week.
With a patient undergoing CPR in the back of the ambulance, the Quilcene volunteer emergency crew decided to rush through the Tacoma Narrows Bridge toll booth without stopping to pay the $4 charge.
“Before we got there, I knew that I was going to go through the ‘good to go’ lane, because that was the least path of resistance,” Joe Vierra, of Jefferson County Fire District #2, told KOMO News.
“The last thing on our minds is whether or not we have to call another government agency to let them know we went code-red through their toll booth,” Fire Chief Robert Low told KOMO News. “Someone’s life is at risk here.”
When the department disputed the fine it received in the post several weeks later, Washington State Department of Transportation officials said it should have called immediately after the Sept. 11 incident to avoid the fine.
The department said it didn’t know it would be fined and decided to pay the $52 penalty rather than incur court costs of disputing the charge.
WSDOT told The News Tribune most emergency vehicles have a Good to Go! pass, but the Quilcene department said they rarely cross the tolled bridge.