By EMS1 Staff
DETROIT — A thief stole an EMT’s belongings from an ambulance while she was treating a patient on a call.
FOX 32 reported that Detroit EMT Charlene Kinnard and her partner were treating an elderly woman with breathing issues when a thief stole her purse and department-issued cell phone.
“It’s very disheartening, it’s ugly – and it’s hurtful,” Kinnard said. “She was obviously having trouble so we had to get her going quickly, we could not have been inside more than 6, 7 or maybe 8 minutes.”
Kinnard said she didn’t realize her belongings were missing until after they had transported the woman to the hospital.
She drove back to the woman’s neighborhood to check and see if she had dropped her phone, but she then received a call from her credit card company, who alerted her that the card had been used at a gas station.
“The male met up with a black female, we don’t know if they came together,” Detroit Police Department Captain Darrell Patterson said. “Or if they met up at a gas station. But the EMT’s credit card was transferred to the female.”
The two thieves were caught on camera walking into the gas station, where the woman bought two packs of cigarettes and a snack.
“You are going to risk your freedom for two packs of cigarettes?” Kinnard said. “Had it been some milk or eggs or something inside the gas station, it would make me think maybe it was a kid, or someone who was hungry. I would be still mad but I can understand it a little bit better. But you bought cigarettes.”
Kinnard was forced to cancel her credit cards and change the locks on her home, but she said it’s the irreplaceable items inside of her purse that she will miss the most.
“A picture of my son that was in my wallet I can’t get back,” she said. “There’s a little stone that my friend gave me, she prayed over it, it says ‘serenity’ on it.”
Patterson said he isn’t surprised by the incident.
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” Patterson said. “It is just a terrible thing that somebody would do something like that to someone who is trying to help someone.”