BEL AIR, Md. — A paramedic responding to a motor vehicle crash was killed Tuesday after being hit by a fire department utility vehicle trying to reach an injured patient.
The paramedic was a paid employee with the Harford County Volunteer Fire & EMS Association. His name has not yet been released pending notification of his family, the Baltimore Sun reports.
He responded to a report of a car that had run off the road and into an embankment. The injured patient was inside a nearby house.
Based on bad weather and driveway conditions, responders decided a four-wheel drive Chevy Silverado utility truck equipped with a snow plow was the best option to access the patient, Harford County Fire & EMS spokesman Rich Gardiner told the Sun.
As the truck maneuvered down the driveway it began to slide, and at some point it hit the medic, Gardiner said. He was treated on the scene then taken to University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Medical Center, where he died of his injures.
“This is an extremely difficult situation,” Gardiner said. “We go in day-to-day in every incident, worried for each other in every incident. You don’t know what we will encounter. We never hope for the worst, but when the worst occurs, it’s a devastating feeling.”
The patient in the house was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
A critical incident stress management team was sent to the fire station, where about 100 people also stopped in with concerns about the wellbeing of their friends and colleagues.
“That’s what the fire service is about,” Gardiner said. “Something happens [and] that’s what they do, they come together. They want to be together with each other.”