ANDERSON COUNTY, S.C. — An ambulance was stolen with a paramedic still inside the vehicle Wednesday morning.
An EMS crew had just brought a cardiac arrest patient to AnMed Health hospital when a discharged patient jumped into the ambulance and drove off, WYFF4 reported.
The crew had unloaded the patient but a paramedic was still in the patient care compartment of the ambulance.
The paramedic tried to gain control of the ambulance as the man drove through the hospital’s parking lot.
A firefighter and an EMS supervisor tried to stop the ambulance from exiting the parking lot by blocking it from the outside, but the man didn’t stop and the supervisor had to dive out of the way of the ambulance not to get run over.
Finally, the ambulance thief drove up onto a curb by the helipad and the paramedic inside the ambulance pushed him against the windshield and gained control of the vehicle before it left the parking lot.
Police arrested the man and identified him as Lenny Ray Ware, 47.