Another Stolen Ambulance

Unit Left Idling at ER Dock

A MEDSTAR AMBULANCE was stolen Monday morning from a St.Louis, Missouri, hospital while the crew was transferring a critically ill person in the emergency room.

MedStar website photo

The patient had been picked up in East St. Louis, Illinois, and taken to the Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis where the theft occurred around 3 am.

The ambulance was recoverd about three hours later back in East St. Louis where a patrol car found it abandoned.  There was no apparent damage to the unit and an initial look-through did not disclose anything missing.  A complete inventory is being taken this morning.

All of MedStar's ambulances have a lock-out feature that permits the driver to lock an idling unit and take the keys with them, but he failed to do so in this instance.  Further compounding the problem is that it was an older reserve unit that does not have the GPS signal device that their front-line ambulances have.

KSDK-TV has the video report on the incident from the MedStar headquarters:

East St. Louis police detectives say that they have a couple of suspects, but have not yet made an arrest.

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Also on FireGeezer…

• Another Stolen Ambulance – April 22, 2013
• Another Stolen Ambulance – October 15, 2012
• Another Stolen Ambulance – June 9, 2012
• Another Stolen Ambulance – March 29, 2013