By Jack Minch
Lowell Sun (Massachusetts)
Copyright 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.
LOWELL, Mass. — A Trinity ambulance stolen from a local hospital early Monday was recovered yesterday on a Pawtucketville street.
A neighborhood resident reported the ambulance on Acorn Street near the intersection with Wright Street about 7:30 a.m., said Capt. Robert DeMoura.
A uniform and identification badge were missing from the truck. Police said they have a suspect, but have not made an arrest.
Police said the suspect, whose name hasn’t been released, agreed to be interviewed at the police station.
“Right now we have some information we’re following. ... We’re right on top of it, we’re just not sure what we’re getting from it,” DeMoura said.
The ambulance was stolen outside Saints Memorial Medical Center about 2:30 a.m. Monday after the two EMTs were called to the hospital on a bogus call, police said.
The set-up for the theft apparently started at Lowell General Hospital.
A video camera at Lowell General captured the suspect on tape as he wandered around that hospital’s ambulance bay about midnight Monday. Hospital officials told him to leave when he said he was looking for a telephone but he went to another restricted part of the hospital and tore a security camera off its mount.
Footage from the camera is recorded in a remote location and wasn’t ruined by the vandalism.
The ambulance crew reported to Saints Memorial expecting to pick up a patient and left the van running while they went inside about 2:30 a.m.
Hospital staff said they didn’t make the call, so the EMTs went back outside and found the ambulance was gone.
“To be honest, we do have a company policy that says when all vehicles are unattended they should be shut off,” said Trinity owner John Chemaly. “However, with this heat ... they were in the hospital getting a patient and didn’t want to come back to a hot truck.”
The company said the employees, whose names weren’t available, were sanctioned.
Investigators showed company officials a picture of their suspect and he was identified as a former employee, Chemaly said. He worked as an EMT for the company about 12 years ago.
The company has about 55 vehicles including ambulances, wheelchair vans and supervisor vehicles. It hasn’t had one stolen using a ruse like Monday’s, Chemaly said.
Another ambulance was stolen last year though, when police say Juan Carlos Cardenas, of Lowell, who had already stolen a taxi from Nashua earlier in the night, took off in another Trinity ambulance that was responding to a medical call in Lowell.
That ambulance was running because it was on a medical call, police said.
Cardenas later ditched the ambulance in Bolton, where he stole a dump truck before getting arrested at gunpoint in Stow, police said.
Staff Writer Robert Mills contributed to this report.