Oklahoma Ambulance

[RocketMedic]

Four injured after ambulance crashes into toll booth

NEWCASTLE, Okla. (KFOR) – Four people are injured after an ambulance crashed into a toll booth in Grady County. Around 3 a.m. on Friday, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol says a Jackson County ambu…

kfor.com

I’m going to take a wild guess and suggest that this was a fatigue-induced incident.

1. Jackson County EMS runs 24-hour shifts with holdovers to longer shifts. When I interviewed there, they were running 48+ hour shifts with “variable overtime”, strongly suggestive of requiring long hour commitments.
2. Time of incident is strongly suggestive of a late-shift LDT.
3. Location of this collision in Grady County pretty much guarantees this was an LDT to OKC.
4. This collision evidently occurred because of a wrong-lane, wrong-approach problem. This is suggestive of driver fatigue. I would not be surprised to see dashcam video of micronaps or even completely asleep. Damage to the ambulance is strongly suggestive of a high-speed impact. I think someone who fell asleep behind the wheel and didn’t see the obstacle.


All involved are lucky to be alive, but this collision was almost certainly caused by deficient EMS safety culture and normalization, with company acceptance and perpetuation, of impaired driving as acceptable.

 

[RocketMedic]

Four people taken to hospital after ambulance crashes into tollbooth on H.E. Bailey Turnpike

Four people are injured after an ambulance crashed into a tollbooth early Friday morning on the H.E. Bailey Turnpike in Newcastle, according to the Oklahoma Highway Patrol.

www.koco.com

Looking at the damage to that ambulance reinforces my initial opinion.

 

[billydunwood]

Although the company I work for doesn't do 911's, we do emergent IFT's 25% of the time, our company has 11hr shifts maximum, no 6th/7th shifts during one week and a minimum of 8hrs required before shifts. I like the policy but I understand many 911 ambulances have to mimic Fire's schedule