Ambulance accident

After a car crash, Peggy Dula was billed $3,606 in ambulance fees by a taxpayer-funded municipal fire department. Bram Sable-Smith/KHN In retrospect, Peggy Dula said, she shouldn't have taken the ambulance. She was the least injured of the three siblings who were in a car when it was struck by a pickup truck last September. Her daughter had even offered to come to the crash site and pick her up. Jim Martens, 62, and Cynthia Martens, 63, Peggy's brother and sister, were more seriously hurt and on their way to the hospital in separate ambulances. Peggy, 55, was told it would be a good idea for her to get checked out, too. So she accepted a ride with a third ambulance crew. When the wreck happened, the siblings were going to see the horses that Peggy's daughter trains at a barn west of Peggy's home in St. Charles, Illinois, about 45 miles outside Chicago. Peggy, who was driving on unfamiliar country roads, pulled into an intersection, mistakenly thinking it was a four-way stop. The truck slammed into the car's side, spinning it into an electrical box. Cynthia, who wasn't wearing a seat belt in the back seat, spent five days in the hospital with a brain bleed, a cracked rib, and a bruised lung. Jim also had fractured ribs, which he learned days later — only after he was back home in Tampa, Florida. Bill of the Month is a crowdsourced investigation by KHN and NPR that dissects and explains medical bills. Do you have an interesting medical bill you want to share with us? Tell us...

A KC Scout traffic camera shows several emergency vehicles at the scene of a fatal ambulance crash near US 71 Highway and Bannister Road on Sunday, April 30, 2023. KC Scout One person is dead and two are suffering critical injuries after a Johnson County, Missouri, ambulance overturned Sunday in Kansas City, authorities said. The ambulance was headed north on U.S. 71 Highway near Bannister Road at about 4:09 p.m. Sunday, Capt. Corey Carlisle, a spokesman with the Kansas City Police Department, said in an email to media. “On the Bannister Road Overpass, the driver lost control of the vehicle, left the roadway to the left, and overturned twice,” Carlisle said. The ambulance came to a stop in the grassy median.

WARRENSBURG, Mo. — A Kansas City-area EMS chief is speaking with the KSHB 41 I-Team after an ambulance crashed and killed a patient. Kansas City, Missouri, police are now looking into what caused the crash that took place Sunday near U.S. 71 Highway and Bannister Road. The ambulance was on its way to Research Medical Center but never arrived. It was coming from Warrensburg with a patient on board. “We’ve never had such a just catastrophic type accident,” said Shane Lockard, EMS chief with the Johnson County, Missouri, Ambulance District. Lockard told the I-Team the patient, identified as 62-year-old Raymond D. Miller, needed specialty care for a gastrointestinal issue. The nature of the issues required Miller to be taken to a larger hospital, which Lockard said is a common practice. “It was an urgent transport. The patient needed to go right away, but it wasn’t a lights and sirens response. It wasn’t critical,” Lockard said. KCMO police said the driver of the ambulance lost control near 71 Highway and Bannister Road. The vehicle left the road and overturned twice. Miller died at the scene. “Just absolutely that our hearts are broken for them. Their loss is real,” Lockard said of Miller's grieving family. Lockard said both crew members on board were taken to the hospital. They’re now at home. “They became victims in this accident," Lockard said. "We show up to work as EMTs and paramedics every day with our intent to help other people, to take care of people. To lose a patie...

Load Error The captain paramedic who was tending to the patient in the back of the The other crew member on board, an emergency medical technician who was driving the ambulance, was released from the hospital Monday. “She’s banged up and sore, but she’s doing OK,” Lockard said of the EMT, who has been with the ambulance district since October. The ambulance service teams work 24 hour shifts starting at 8 a.m., so Sunday’s crew of two was about eight hours into the shift when the crash happened, Lockard said. As the EMT drove the vehicle northbound on U.S. 71, over Bannister Road, she lost control and the ambulance ran off the road and overturned twice, authorities said. The patient in the back of the ambulance was declared dead at the scene, authorities said. The victim’s identity has not yet been made public. The ambulance was traveling at 61 miles per hour at the time of the crash, according to a GPS system attached to the ambulance, Lockard said. The posted speed limit on that section of road is 65 miles per hour. Lockard said he’s received numerous questions about the age and experience of the EMT, who is 21 and completed the Johnson County ambulance service’s EMT training academy prior to being hired. EMT and paramedic school doesn’t have any training in the driving or operation of a vehicle, Lockard said, so the ambulance service has its own field training orientation program that new hires must complete. The program combines classroom time with time behind the wheel...

By Kayla Ruble The Detroit News KALAMAZOO TOWNSHIP, Mich. — An accident involving a state-owned plow and an ambulance in Kalamazoo County left multiple people injured amid snowy conditions on Friday, officials. The ambulance collided with the Michigan Department of Transportation plow around 11 a.m. at the Interstate 94 business loop in Kalamazoo Township, said Nick Schirripa, a spokesman for the MDOT Southwest Region. "One of our plows was sitting out of the traffic lane on the shoulder alongside the business loop," said Nick Schirripa, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Transportation. "All the lights were on and an ambulance passing by clipped the side of the plow and flipped." (Photo/Kalamazoo Township Police Department) "One of our plows was sitting out of the traffic lane on the shoulder alongside the business loop," he said. "All the lights were on and an ambulance passing by clipped the side of the plow and flipped." There were reportedly seven passengers inside the Life EMS ambulance at the time of the crash, including a patient and a baby, while the remaining passengers were EMS workers headed to a hospital, There were injuries reported among the vehicle's passengers, but it was unclear how many. Life EMS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. The person operating the MDOT plow was not injured, Schirripa said. The department also plans its own investigation as police probe the incident. Other details were not released Frida...