9 Investigates: Do private ambulances put public at risk?

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — 9 Investigates whether state law does enough to protect people on the road, following a crash involving a private ambulance company in Altamonte Springs.

Investigative reporter Karla Ray has been working to obtain records about the crash at the corner of SR 434 and SR 436 involving an American Ambulance, owned by parent company Falck Southeast, since the Nov. 12 crash.

The ambulance was running with red flashing lights before it was T-boned by another driver, investigators said. State law allows red flashing lights to be used by medical transport companies during an emergency, but records showed this particular transport may not have been an emergency.

Call notes provided by the Seminole County Fire Department, which responded to the accident, showed an American Ambulance supervisor relayed that the crew was en route to a hospice facility.

“It doesn’t appear that it would be an emergency,” Tix Team attorney Jeff Lotter said.

The patient in the back of the ambulance later died, and now the Altamonte Springs Police Department is conducting a standard traffic homicide investigation. Police stressed that the patient’s death may not have been a direct result of the crash.

A manager at an American Ambulance corporate office in Miami told 9 Investigates by phone that the company does not comment on open investigations, and he could not relay policy information about whether a hospice transport would be considered an emergency.

Lotter, who is also a former law enforcement officer, said the company could be held liable in civil court for the accident.

“They still have to drive with due regard to other traffic, and it even makes it more egregious if it is not an emergency to begin with, and just a regular transport,” Lotter said.

According to the Florida Department of Health, private ambulance companies set their own policies defining what they consider an emergency. They do not have to share those policies with the public. That means it could be tough for law enforcement to cite a private ambulance driver for potential wrongdoing, even if there is no obvious emergency that would warrant the use of red flashing lights.

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“The police officer will only have the word of the driver to go by, without access to policies in regards to emergencies, they'd never know,” Lotter said.

Police in Altamonte Springs said the driver who did not yield to the ambulance will be ticketed, but the rest of their investigation could take weeks.

American Ambulance is being sued in Orange County for auto negligence related to an accident in 2014, but they have no discipline on file with the Department of Health for medical issues.

Cox Media Group