Maybe they had the backboards on other patients? Maybe they were on a gold-cart that didn't have backboards? Maybe they didn't have access to stretchers in that location?
Who knows what happened. All we know is that her leg was in a splint. She could be ambulatory with a lot of pain. She could be head strong and offered to limp over to the ambulance with assistance, including straight out refusing to be drug via gurney, backboard, or basket over to the ambulance?
What's wrong with the picture? The annoying voice of the news reporter.
It did seem a little odd that she was hopping, but who knows. We had a patient who had been hit by a car and had a tib/fib hop up and open the back doors of the ambulance before we even made it out of the cab....