Police Say Ambulance Involved in Monday Rollover Going Too Fast
By: Ashley Hinson
Updated: February 26, 2013
Police say the paramedics involved in an ambulance rollover Monday night were traveling at an unsafe speed for the road conditions.
Were told the driver Kim Pelletier, 41, and Christopher Colpitts, 29, were responding to another accident around 7 p.m. when they hit a patch of ice on the Slide overpass on the South Loop.
The ambulance then slammed into a concrete barrier and rolled on its side.
Lubbock EMS Director Chris Teague disagrees with the police report and said the driver was doing everything she should have been.
Teague said the ambulance was cautiously going 14 m.p.h. under the speed limit, but the paramedics were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Those medics drive continuously all the time and they're very versed in what they do and like I said they were being very cautious," said Teague. "But when you get 18,000 lbs. going sideways it's kind of hard to control that thing. So we want to make sure people are aware and understand this is why those warnings are put out and why they close roads because if it can happen to us like it did it can happen to anybody."
Pelletier and Colpitts are at still at UMC recovering and both have been upgraded to satisfactory condition.
Were told the driver Kim Pelletier, 41, and Christopher Colpitts, 29, were responding to another accident around 7 p.m. when they hit a patch of ice on the Slide overpass on the South Loop.
The ambulance then slammed into a concrete barrier and rolled on its side.
Lubbock EMS Director Chris Teague disagrees with the police report and said the driver was doing everything she should have been.
Teague said the ambulance was cautiously going 14 m.p.h. under the speed limit, but the paramedics were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Those medics drive continuously all the time and they're very versed in what they do and like I said they were being very cautious," said Teague. "But when you get 18,000 lbs. going sideways it's kind of hard to control that thing. So we want to make sure people are aware and understand this is why those warnings are put out and why they close roads because if it can happen to us like it did it can happen to anybody."
Pelletier and Colpitts are at still at UMC recovering and both have been upgraded to satisfactory condition.
