Louisville Ambulance vs Semi Accident

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www.whas11.com

Ambulance transporting patient struck by semi-truck in downtown Louisville

When the semi-truck driver hit the Bullitt County ambulance, officials say the EMT who was treating the patient was ejected from the back.
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Sounds like the ambulance was transporting a patient with lights and sirens, ran a red light and struck a semi truck. Paramedic in back with patient was ejected, other Paramedic was injured.
 
Well...I am currently here, drove past the wreck carnage this morning at 0530 as it happened right in front of UofL Jewish ER.

The ambulance was transporting a 16 year old girl who had stolen a car and then crashed it. They were transporting her to Norton's Children Hospital for evaluation. Yes, they were running lights and sirens on a BLS patient, at a time of the night when the flipping interstate is empty! State Troopers were behind the unit. The semi did not see them, they did not stop...impact on passenger side of the ambo. Driver of semi is ok. Driver of ambo got banged up pretty good but is ok. The female patient is uninjured, she jumped out and ran. The troopers got her. The Medic in back is 2 months shy of retirement. He was ejected and FUBAR. Was in surgery all day, was not expected to survive. Currently critical and alive. Jewish ER stabilized them all and then transferred them to UofL Trauma center a block away. I know he had a flail chest amongst many other injuries.

EMS here generally sucks. They are understaffed and overworked like most places. LOT of urban BS, lot of trauma. Anyways, this crew was coming from about 45 minutes away, which is why I presume they were speeding and running L/S. It does suck, however there absolutely are contributing factors from both sides, and a cultural practice here where they ALL do this. I very rarely see a non-L/S transport.
 
Heck of a way to end the career!
 
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Hypothetically that kind of crash could cause a whole slew of injuries like flail chest (9 ribs), liver lac, spleen lac, multiple skull fractures, bilateral tib/fib, pneumo, and a subarachnoid bleed. Scary stuff!
 
Kinda sounds like stupidity on the crew’s part.
 
Also note, Bullitt County uses Sprinter style ambulances. They are in process of switching back to box units, however this crash was in a Sprinter Ambo.
 
akflightmedic said:
Also note, Bullitt County uses Sprinter style ambulances. They are in process of switching back to box units, however this crash was in a Sprinter Ambo.
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Curious why they're switching back. Any ideas?
 
The crews reportedly hate them. But economically they make absolute sense, especially with the long transports they have and then getting around the city traffic.

Lot of the people here are home grown, corn fed if you get what I’m saying. LOL.
 
akflightmedic said:
EMS here generally sucks. They are understaffed and overworked like most places. LOT of urban BS, lot of trauma. Anyways, this crew was coming from about 45 minutes away, which is why I presume they were speeding and running L/S. It does suck, however there absolutely are contributing factors from both sides, and a cultural practice here where they ALL do this. I very rarely see a non-L/S transport.
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One other thing to consider: Bullitt County EMS only has 8 ambulance... not 8 units, 8 trucks. 4 of them were already OOS, including 1 from this crash, and another was hit by a semi back in April. They serve a population of 78,622 people in an area of 300square miles, so they might judge it a better risk to transport L&S and get back to their area, vs risking having the entire county without adequate EMS coverage (idk, just a discussion point). Their EMS mutual aid is a FD in the eastern part of the county. That's it, so you don't have 30 ambulances scattered around; it's a lot of rural area with pockets of municipalities.

I do hope the injured paramedic recovers and is able to enjoy his retirement
 
Being that Bullitt County has MULTIPLE municipalities, all with transport capabilities, and they actually have a few more trucks than what you stated, and being that this is not some massive rural area as the interstates run right through in every direction, at the end of the day, they CHOSE to run L/S for a BLS call, the same way they do for every transport.

I transit Bullitt County daily and actually have met with the EMS director as I was inquiring about their plans for the Sprinter disposal after the new box trucks arrive. Like I said, I am here, working, now. My info is solid.
 
akflightmedic said:
Like I said, I am here, working, now. My info is solid.
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ok, I was only going by what the EMS director said in https://www.wdrb.com/news/bullitt-c...cle_cc4bcbce-111a-11ee-a300-fbc013cc5a47.html as well as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullitt_County,_Kentucky, which said
The Bullitt County Emergency Medical Service (BCEMS) provides emergency medical care and transport in Bullitt County.

Mount Washington Fire and EMS was founded in 2021 and provides EMS services to the Mount Washington Fire Protection District. They staff two ALS ambulances 24/7. They also provide mutual aid to the remainder of Bullitt County.
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He is still alive, still in critical condition. There was a parade the other day by his "room" for his birthday.
 
Dr. P, unsure why you are citing info about Mt. Washington, as that is a separate service within Bullitt. As for the county, they have 8 ambulances. As you should know and suspect, anytime an official can get the limelight and capitalize on that opportunity to seize more funding for their services, it will be done. They still run the trucks via loaners from manufacturer, loaners from repair shop, and loaners from surrounding departments. No different than what I experienced in Maine, when our small 5-unit rural service had a truck or two down for the count.
 
akflightmedic said:
Dr. P, unsure why you are citing info about Mt. Washington, as that is a separate service within Bullitt. As for the county, they have 8 ambulances.
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You were the one who said
akflightmedic said:
Being that Bullitt County has MULTIPLE municipalities, all with transport capabilities, and they actually have a few more trucks than what you stated, a
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so I'm not sure why you are confused, because it was a direct response to what you said.

As per their EMS Director:
Bullitt County EMS director Chris Hale said they usually operate eight ambulances, but they are down four. "We are down two due to collisions, we are down one due to manufacture and then we're down one to an issue with our stretcher," he said.
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There is a difference between UNITS and AMBULANCES. a unit is a staffed vehicle, with all of the equipment needed to respond to a 911 call. These are your front line vehicles that are currently in the 911 system, available to answer calls. EVERY EMS service should have a backup ambulance. That is the physical truck. it's older, smaller, might not have all of the equipment, but when the front line vehicles go out for maintenance, you use a backup/reserve. using your 5 unit rural system, were those 5 staffed ambulances, or 1 staffed units, and 4 spare vehicles?

I've worked for urban, suburban or rural systems; it's rare that we borrow from our neighbors. Liability and public perception aside, outside of a disaster (EMS station burns down, causing two trucks to go up in smoke), it was rare that we were borrowing trucks from our neighbors. I believe NJ OEMS had a rule that said every paid EMS system needed to have 1 reserve ambulance for every 2 front line ambulance; it might be 4:1, I don't remember.

It's the responsible for each EMS agency to have the proper reserves for when ambulances go down for routine maintenance, gets involved in a crash, or whatever. it's no difference that having spare cardiac monitors.
 
Because your experience is exactly that...and limited to your area of operations. Which certainly does not apply across the board to every service, every region. Anyways, even working in high volume large counties in FL, we would easily have loaners from the manufacturer, and even borrowed a truck from an outside agency a few times.

Unit and Ambulance is interchangeable in my experience as the places I have worked. Again, just regional colloquialism, so I can understand your confusion since I used the word unit to describe an ambulance.

Still do not understand your Mt Wash reference unless you are posting that so support what I stated? Because you had stated maybe they ran L/S to avoid having a unit out of the area, and I countered that there are plenty of units in the area.

Anywho, thank you for sharing your out of state and past experiences.
 
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