Town of Liberty Volunteer Ambulance Corps - Press Release

40yrs 40yrs

***PRESS RELEASE***

December 1, 2009

We are issuing this release in order to correct some inaccuracies included in several articles regarding the theft of one of our ambulances on November 30, 2009.

At approximately 1200 hours on November 30, 2009, one of the Town of Liberty Volunteer Ambulance Corps' ambulances, unit number 2017, was stolen from outside the emergency room at Catskill Regional Medical Center in Harris, NY. The ambulance was taken by a patient who apparently wanted to leave after wating to be admitted to the inpatient unit for further evaluation. The patient in question had been in the emergency room for several hours and contrary to published reports had not been tranpsorted by our corps at that time but was rather transported by her "home" corps earlier that morning. At the time of the theft, the crew of the ambulance was inside the emergency room re-doing the linen on their ambulance stretcher. Upon exiting the emergency department, they realized that their ambulance was missing and immediately notified the Sullivan County 911 Center. The staff at the 911 center did an excellent job of quickly getting the report out to the police agencies in Sullivan County. Within six or seven minutes units of the New York State Police located the missing ambulance approximately five miles from the hospital and apprehended the suspect and took her into custody. Personnel of our ambulance corps took possession of the ambulance and after being checked over and inventoried the ambulance was placed back in service. There was no damage to the rig and nothing missing from it's equipment. The ambulance that was taken was a BLS ambulance and no medications were in its inventory during this incident.

The Town of Liberty Volunteer Ambulance Corps has a policy regarding the security of its ambulances and all of our newer units are equipped with anti-theft systems. Unfortunately the ambulance in question is a ten year old unit and does not feature such a system. In regard to this unit, a policy was in effect but apparently was not fully complied with at the time of the incident. We have reviewed our policy and all personnel have been advised that it must be fully followed at all times so such an incident will not occur again.

On behalf of the corps, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the staff at the Sullivan County 911 Center, the New York State Police, and the Sullivan County Sheriff's Department for their fast and very professional actions which brought this incident to a quick and safe conclusion.

Any further questions regarding this incident should be directed to Mr. Barry Cooperstein, EMS Administrator and Public Information Officer at (845) 292 - 4320.

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