Patient Booked in New Orleans Ambulance Theft

State Police arrested a hospital patient who stole a city-owned ambulance at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans and drove the vehicle into Jefferson Parish on Tuesday afternoon.

Paramedics from New Orleans Emergency Medical Service had just unloaded a critically ill cardiac patient at Touro's emergency room when John Malane, 29, of New Orleans jumped inside the vehicle shortly before 4 p.m., spokesmen for the State Police and the ambulance service said.

State Police spokesman Trooper Joseph Piglia said Malane had been at Touro getting unspecified treatment.

Malane drove the ambulance from the hospital onto Interstate 10 and into Metairie, Piglia said. With lights on and sirens blaring, Malane got behind a state trooper's vehicle on the highway, Piglia said.

"He was weaving in and out of traffic at a slow rate of speed," Piglia said. "He wasn't trying to outrun. He just wasn't stopping."

Four state troopers eventually used their police cars to box in Malane and bring the ambulance to a halt on I-10 near Transcontinental Boulevard.

Malane was booked with auto theft and possession of stolen property, Piglia said. He was released to an unnamed hospital for treatment.

Mark Reis, deputy director of New Orleans Emergency Medical Service, said the ambulance was not damaged and nothing was stolen from it. It was returned to service soon after State Police stopped it.

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