So sayeth the patient in an ambulance which had a little malfunction on the way to the hospital.
Wheels Fall Off Gloucester Ambulance After Patient Drop-Off
GLOUCESTER (CBS) – The crew on board a Gloucester Fire Ambulance noticed the ride to Addison Gilbert Hospital was bumpy. What they didn’t realize was the fact that the back wheels of the rescue truck were about to fall off.
Don’t laugh, I had this happen to me several years ago on the way to a call. Nothing like seeing one of your wheels rolling merrily off into the woods to get your attention. Fortunately for us, it was a real wheel and we had two per side. We carefully, very carefully, pulled to the side of the road and called for a tow truck. We also looked, but never found the wheel and tire. In our case, it was a mechanical failure, not a mechanic failure that was the cause. Still, it’s a bit scary.
The ambulance, which is a 1993 model year, is the oldest in the fleet.
Twenty years is ancient in ambulance years. This was likely a back up to the back up, if you know what I mean. Still, I learned a long time ago never to take anything for granted when checking out an ambulance. Not even that the lug nuts are all where they should be. As we say, give an EMT or paramedic two bowling balls and they’ll lose one and break the other. And claim that it happened on their day off.
The rescue crew made it to the hospital. But moments after dropping off Burns, when they were pulling out of the parking lot, the wheels just fell off.
I guess they just thought it was the usual bumpy, wobbly, ride to the hospital.
Or it was close to shift change.
Or lunch time.
Priorities, don’t you know?
“All Fords do that.” as a mechanic I know used to say.
At least they didn’t drive off with the gas nozzle sticking out of the filler. Still, I have a feeling that the Gloucester Fire Department is going to have a new rule, and it’s going to be named after the guy who was driving on that call.
When people tell me I should write a book about my experiences, I point out that it would have to be in the form of a novel because no one would believe 1/10th of the stuff that I’ve seen.
Sounds like the turnover check was NOT real thorough…
You have a talent for understatement. Even worse, if it was put into service as a back up, it should have gotten a closer look.
As a recovering ambulance mechanic, I have two words for GFD’s vehicle maintenance techs: “Torque wrench.”
Torque wrench didn’t help when I lost a front passenger wheel on a Type 4 when a pothole I couldn’t see sheared the studs themselves off. It was a run to Cardinal Glennon’s Children in St. Louis and the pothole was right at the top off the off ramp. I was making the turn on to Grand when I hit the pot hole and the whole rig dropped to the street about a block and half from the CG but right in front of Incarnate Word where another one of our rigs was just getting ready to pull out. Quick patient transfer and little girls and her mom were at the ED in another 6 minutes. I was suspended from driving for 3 weeks and spent the time cleaning and restocking rigs and doing paperwork.
I thought OEMS mandated you can’t have ambulances that old?
Anyway, looks like privates aren’t the only ones running trucks into the ground.
Some ambulance services are more equal than others, it appears.