By EMS1 Staff
MERIDIAN, Miss. — A man was arrested this week after stealing an ambulance and driving off with an EMS provider napping in the back.
The rig was stopped at a truck stop in Mississippi when the suspect allegedly jumped in the driver’s seat, WTOK reported. The man then drove away in the rig with the crewmember still in the back.
The EMS provider jumped out of the ambulance before it got onto the interstate and managed to avoid injury.
Police followed the stolen ambulance in a pursuit reaching speeds of about 80 miles per hour. An officer was able to move his patrol car in front of the rig to slow it down, and it eventually came to a stop on the interstate.
The suspect, Zachary Hopson, fled the vehicle and was apprehended in a wooded area behind a nearby Sam’s Club, according to Chief Deputy Ward Calhoun of the Lauderdale County Sheriff’s Office.
Hopson is being held on an approximately $16,000 bond.