A man has been charged after an ambulance parked outside Timaru Hospital was taken for a joyride while a patient awaited transfer to Christchurch early on Tuesday morning.
Dashcam footage provided to 1News showed the stolen ambulance travelling through thick fog at speeds of up to 82km/h.
In a statement to 1News on Wednesday afternoon, police said a man had been arrested and charged in relation to the incident.
The owner of the ambulance, Don Gutsell, said he was “ectastic and blown away” by police’s quick response.
Gutsell, who ran health and safety training provider ProMed, said the ambulance was left running to warm up while medical staff were preparing a patient to be transferred to Christchurch.
“It was a really cold, foggy night, and we left the vehicle running to heat up the back of it.”
He came out to get into the ambulance to realise it was gone at around 12.50am.
“I thought, ‘geez, I’ve left the bloody hand brake off’, so I go out, and there’s no ambulance buried in a hedge or anything like that,” he told 1News last night.
The stolen ambulance travelled in thick fog at speeds of up to 82km/h on Tuesday morning. (Source: Supplied)
When he could not find the ambulance, he rang police and then his wife, who tracked his phone which was still in the vehicle.
“We met the police down there on Hayman St and it was just sitting there with lights on. He probably went only 3 or 4km. I thought, ‘who the hell takes a vehicle like this’?”
The joyride caused an hour-and-a-half delay to the patient’s transfer, Gutsell said.
“If you think of somebody who’s got to be taken to Christchurch from Timaru, then there’s got to be something really wrong with them.”
He said he and his staff would now have to turn off and lock vehicles rather than getting them warmed up for a patient to get into.
“It’s just a gut-wrenching, disappointing, bloody episode.”
A 25-year-old man was expected to appear in the Timaru District Court today charged with unlawfully taking a vehicle and being an unlicensed driver failing to comply with prohibition.
