New Details Released About Fatal KC Ambulance Crash

Both ambulance crew members injured in a rollover crash that killed a patient Sunday in Kansas City are now at home recovering, authorities said Tuesday, as the investigation into what caused the crash continues.

The captain paramedic who was tending to the patient in the back of the Johnson County, Missouri, Ambulance District ambulance was hospitalized with lacerations to his head, said Chief Shane Lockard, with the ambulance service. As of Tuesday morning, the paramedic, who has been with the ambulance district for eight years, had been released from the hospital.

The other crew member on board, an emergency medical technician who was driving the ambulance, was released from the hospital Monday.

“She’s banged up and sore, but she’s doing OK,” Lockard said of the EMT, who has been with the ambulance district since October.

The ambulance service teams work 24 hour shifts starting at 8 a.m., so Sunday’s crew of two was about eight hours into the shift when the crash happened, Lockard said. As the EMT drove the vehicle northbound on U.S. 71, over Bannister Road, she lost control and the ambulance ran off the road and overturned twice, authorities said.

The patient in the back of the ambulance was declared dead at the scene, authorities said. The victim’s identity has not yet been made public.

The ambulance was traveling at 61 miles per hour at the time of the crash, according to a GPS system attached to the ambulance, Lockard said. The posted speed limit on that section of road is 65 miles per hour.

Lockard said he’s received numerous questions about the age and experience of the EMT, who is 21 and completed the Johnson County ambulance service’s EMT training academy prior to being hired.

EMT and paramedic school doesn’t have any training in the driving or operation of a vehicle, Lockard said, so the ambulance service has its own field training orientation program that new hires must complete. The program combines classroom time with time behind the wheel with an ambulance crew, including a field training officer.

The EMT was no longer driving with a field training officer at the time of the crash, Lockard said. That means she had already completed her 10, 24-hour shifts with the field training officer before getting a final stamp of approval from the district.

From there, new hires are usually assigned a more experienced paramedic as their partner, Lockard said.

He added that 21 is a common age for EMS; they see EMTs as young as 18 or 19, with the bulk of the workforce being in their 20s and 30s.

“Our agency is well above industry standard in our field training and orientation process. We’re not alone in the way we do ours, but we definitely I think provide more onboarding and direct training under a field training officer than the average EMS agency,” Lockard said.

At this point, without answers about what caused the accident, Lockard said he can’t make any comment on whether more training might’ve prevented this crash.

The EMT driver, as a part of standard procedure, remains on paid administrative leave until the investigation is completed.

The crash is under investigation by the Kansas City Police Department. Sgt. Deb Randol with the KCPD’s accident investigation unit said they are looking into whether wind gusts could have caused the driver to lose control on the overpass.

The district has around 45 full-time and 20 part-time employees who respond to about 10,000 calls a year, Lockard said. It hasn’t been determined if the ambulance is a total loss, but it is believed to be unrecoverable.

While the ambulance was insured, any amount received won’t cover replacement costs due to the ambulance’s age, Lockard said. The ambulance is a 2014 model and was one of 12 ambulances in the district’s fleet. Because of a backorder of ambulances, it could take two years to get a new ambulance manufactured.

The Star’s Robert A. Cronkleton contributed.

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