Man arrested in connection to damaging, attempting to steal BC ambulance

A man was arrested after a BC Ambulance was damaged on Wednesday.

Paramedic public information officer Brian Twaites said in a statement that a patient “became combative and damaged the inside of a parked ambulance in the Vancouver General Hospital ambulance bay,” at approximately 4 p.m.

The paramedics who were in the ambulance with the patient were able to get out safely and were not injured, Twaites said.

“The ambulance has been taken out of service to be cleaned and repaired and has been replaced with a different vehicle from the BCEHS fleet,” he added.

Twaites said Vancouver police were called and took the patient into custody.

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Police confirmed that officers were called to the hospital after a man allegedly began damaging the inside of an ambulance, attempting to smash windows and grabbing needles from a sharps container.

“When our officers arrived, the suspect was sitting in the driver’s seat of the ambulance and appeared to be trying to start the engine,” Vancouver police said in a statement.

“Officers used a police car to block in the ambulance, then took the suspect into custody. A bean-bag shotgun was fired during the arrest due to the suspect’s violent behaviour and because he did not comply with police directions.”

Police said the man has not been charged at this time.

Twaites said they are determined to protect paramedics and provide them with whatever they need following the incident.

“We are committed to doing everything we can to make sure BCEHS employees are able to do their jobs as safely as possible, and we have increased our violence prevention training and the mental health supports we offer our paramedics,” he said.

“As we do with any serious incident of this nature, we have notified WorkSafeBC and will review the circumstances of the incident to discover anything that can be learned from it, so that any recommendations can be implemented as soon as possible.”

According to Emergency Health Services, from 2020 to 2025, there were seven recorded incidents of patients damaging ambulances, and in most cases, the damage was minor.

The Ambulance Paramedics of BC did not respond to Global News’ request for an interview.

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