A patient was killed and a paramedic critically injured when the ambulance they were in apparently exploded outside a hospital in Hawaii, official said.
According to Honolulu Emergency Medical Services, the incident took place just after 8 p.m. local time at Adventist Heath Castle in Kailua while an ambulance was transporting a 91-year-old patient to the emergency room.
A paramedic who was in the rear of the vehicle, an eight-year veteran, sustained critical injuries and has been transferred to the Straub Medical Center.
Another EMT who was driving the ambulance escaped injury, a city and county news release said.
An ambulance fire in Hawaii on Wednesday killed a 91-year-old patient and critically injured a paramedic. HawaiiNewsNow
It took firefighters 11 minutes to put out the flames outside Adventist Health Castle. HawaiiNewsNow
The paramedic who was in the back — an eight-year veteran — suffered critical injuries. HawaiiNewsNowFirefighters who responded to the scene were able to get the ambulance inferno under control in 11 minutes, reported Hawaii News Now.
At a news conference outside the Kailua hospital overnight, an emotional Emergency Services Director Dr. Jim Ireland said it remained unknown what caused the ambulance catch fire and “possibly explode.”
“This is something I’ve never seen before,” he said. “We’re all just very concerned about our team and the patient that lost their life.”
Neither the deceased patient nor the injured paramedic has been identified as of Thursday afternoon.
“All our paramedics, EMTs and dispatchers are all treasured members of our staff and or family, they save lives every day, and it’s just very hard to be in a situation where our team is the ones who are injured,” Ireland told reporters. “I’ll just leave it at that.”
The Honolulu Fire Department is investigating the cause of the blaze.
