Associated Press
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press
TEXARKANA, Texas — A paramedic from LifeNet’s Ashdown station owes her life to a fellow emergency medical technician, a trooper said Friday, after an ambulance carrying a pregnant woman crashed into the back of a tractor-trailer rig on U. S. 71 north of Texarkana.
The ambulance was traveling south on the Texas side of the four-lane, divided highway, which runs along the Arkansas-Texas line. The fiery crash about a mile north of Texarkana was investigated by Texas police.
Police said the southbound flatbed rig was stopped at a crossover, waiting to turn around into the northbound lanes when the ambulance hit the rear of the trailer. fought the blaze with a fire extinguisher until firefighters arrived. Suiter had been driving the ambulance, while Pate was riding in the rear attending to the patient, Kimberly Hendrix, 23, of Ashdown, the trooper said.
Pate had unbuckled her seatbelt to check on Hendrix, Munger said, and when the collision occurred she was thrown through a side door of the ambulance. Pate landed under the rig, Munger said. Suiter smelled diesel fuel and immediately went to pull Pate to safety, the trooper said.
Meanwhile, passers-by who had stopped to help had pulled Hendrix from the wreckage, a family member said.
Hendrix, who reported only some bruises and soreness after the accident, was taken to the hospital in Texarkana, which was her original destination. A family member said Hendrix was resting in the labor and delivery wing later Friday, awaiting the onset of labor after doctors had assured themselves that her unborn baby had suffered no harm.
Texas trooper Stephen W. Munger said the pregnant woman and the ambulance crew survived without lifethreatening injuries, but it took a heroic rescue by EMT Reba Suiter, 26, to save paramedic Julie Pate, 25.
The truck driver, Stuart Haywood, 35, of Jacksonville, Fla., was apparently unhurt.