Theft hits 999 crew

Mar 12 2007 By Steve Johnson, Birmingham Mail

VALUABLE equipment was stolen from an ambulance while the crew was treating a patient.

A youth was seen running from the vehicle with two bags of equipment as West Midlands Ambulance Service crew were assessing a patient after an emergency call to Cedar Road, Dudley.

Police were alerted and a second ambulance had to be sent out to transport the patient to hospital on Friday night.

A paramedic bag dumped in the middle of a road was recovered by police on their way to the scene.

Shortly afterwards, a youth brought a second bag back to the ambulance.

Clinical support officer Martin Eaton remained on scene wile the first ambulance crew gave statements to the police and CCTV footage was checked.

Mr Eaton said: "It appears that all the equipment has now been recovered and the patient involved was safely transferred to Russells Hall Hospital, Dudley.

"However, this incident meant that two ambulance response vehicles were not available to deal with other emergencies for over an hour.

"On a busy Friday night that could have had serious implications for other patients," he added.

West Midlands Ambulance Service spokeswoman Daphne Lewis said the theft of equipment was futile because none would be of use to anyone else.

"This was a stupid prank which could have had much more serious consequences.

"The incident on Friday followed a spate of other incidents recently where thieves have broken into ambulances to steal satellite navigation systems.

"Again that is a useless exercise for the thieves because this is specialised equipment which is no good in any other vehicle," Ms Lewis added.