Stuck

For the second week in a row the tones went off before 0730 on Thursday. Luckily for the crew getting off duty, my shift was all there and we took the call. It was a call for a man with chest pain and while we were responding dispatch informed us that the patient may want to go to the hospital in his own vehicle. When we got there we found a man that had chest pain and was spitting up some blood that wanted to go to the hospital without us. After trying multiple times to get him to go in the ambulance, which by this time had arrived on scene, we signed him out AMA. This is where the call got interesting. The hill that we were on was very steep. So much so that the engine had a hard time staying in place even with the wheels chalked.



The EMT driving the ambulance tried to make a three point turn on a little side road but never made it to the third point. He got high centered on the dirt road and buried his rear bumper in the dirt. The problem was that the ambulance was now blocking our only way out. So we tried to get them out. First, by digging them out.



Then, by putting rocks under the tires so that they could get some traction (which almost worked).



We then tried cribbing (pieces of wood used for vehicle stabilization), which didn't work.



A frustrated EMT.



We then decided that we had to risk using the engine on the steep slope to pull the ambulance out. The ambulance paramedic (Melissa) seems a little embarrassed. As you can see in this shot we are on a good size hill with a nice view.



With the use of some large rocks we kept the engine from sliding down the hill while we jacked the ambulance out of it's ditch. Everyone was a little dirty after this call. We still are waiting for our ice cream from this ambulance crew.