A patient reportedly suffering a mental health crisis overpowered a Butler Ambulance crew at a Montgomery County hospital and took it on a wild ride followed by police cars from several jurisdictions.
The pursuit eventually ended in Arlington, near the Pentagon, after more than 30 minutes.
It started the Maryland hospital around 2:40 a.m. when the patient started wrestling with the crew. He overpowered them and sped off with the strobe lights activated and the rear doors wide open.
The man traveled at modest speeds ranging between 55 and 65 mph while driving the ambulance on the major roads to reach I-270 and then the Beltway, according to scanner traffic.
For much of the trip he was reportedly on the phone with the Montgomery County 911 center. The operators urged him to pull over, but he refused. He continued driving on the Beltway, across the Potomac into Virginia, before turning onto I-66.
Finally, around 3:15 a.m., the man brought the ambulance to a stop in the area of Washington Boulevard and Route 110, adjacent to the Pentagon reservation, and was taken into custody by Arlington County police without further incident.
Ballston Company’s IPO Soars — “Privia Health Group, which provides technology and services to physician practices, began trading Thursday on the Nasdaq and saw its share price jump in early trading — and stay there. Shares closed at $34.75 per share, up 51 percent from its opening share price of $23, with just over 10 million shares traded.” [Crunchbase]
Ambulance Crash in N. Arlington — “Crash involving an ambulance (not ACFD) at Old Dominion Drive & Lorcom Lane. @ArlingtonVaFD & @ArlingtonVAPD on the scene.” [Twitter]
New Hire for County Retirement System — “After a nationwide search, the Arlington County Employees’ Retirement System (ACERS) has selected Susie Ardeshir as Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer. The appointment is effective July 6, 2021. Ms. Ardeshir has more than 15 years of investment management experience. Before joining ACERS, she was the investments director at a public university system in California.” [Arlington County]
Grants to Nat’l Landing Merchants — “The National Landing Business Improvement District (BID) teamed up with Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington (RAMW) to provide $100,000 in relief funding to 30 businesses as part of their “Love Local” campaign. Funds are allocated evenly across the eligible National Landing establishments to help cover necessary operator-related expenses including rent and employee wages.” [Press Release]
VHC Doc, Nurses Honored — “Virginia Hospital Center… is pleased to announce Michael Silverman, MD, FACEP, chair of emergency medicine, was recently selected as one of five 2020 Facility Medical Directors of the Year by Alteon Health [and] five members of the nursing team were selected by Washingtonian Magazine to receive Excellence in Nursing Awards.” [Press Release]
Students at a Clarendon area daycare center are spending part of their morning on the Arlington County Fire Department’s mass casualty ambulance bus.
A fire department spokesman said the ambulance bus was dispatched to the 1200 block of N. Ivy Street, where firefighters are investigating a possible gas leak inside a building.
The block is home to NOVA KinderCare, a daycare center. The spokesman said the bus was deployed to keep children warm as firefighters investigate the reported leak and await the arrival of Washington Gas.
No injuries have been reported.
Update at 9:35 a.m. — The daycare building has been deemed safe to re-occupy, according to scanner traffic.
8:23am today units called to 1200 blk N Ivy St for smell of gas in Daycare. No medical issues reported. Kids were moved to nearby building while cause was investigated. Issue isolated to HVAC which was shut down. Building ventilated. Kids returned to building for parent pickup.
— Arlington Fire (@ArlingtonVaFD) November 29, 2018
Photo via ACFD/Twitter
A collision at a busy intersection in Lyon Park blocked traffic during the Monday evening rush hour.
The crash happened just before 5 p.m., at the intersection of N. Daniel Street and 10th Street N. One vehicle, a Volvo XC70, tipped to its side while a Mitsubishi Eclipse was severely damaged.
Two ambulances were dispatched to the scene, though no serious injuries were reported, according to the police scanner. The intersection was temporarily blocked by emergency vehicles; it reopened around 5:45 p.m.
At least two vehicle occupants were walking around the closed-off intersection speaking with police and taking photos of the crash.
Map via Google Maps
Record High Low Temperature — The area has set another record for a warm low temperature. Yesterday, the low temperature at Reagan National Airport was 74 degrees, besting the previous Oct. 9 record of 72 degrees. [Twitter]
Record APS Enrollment — Enrollment at Arlington Public Schools for the 2017-2018 school year has been recorded at 26,927, surpassing the previous record set in 1963 in the midst of the Baby Boom generation. “The official count was up 789 students – 3 percent – from a year before, and has now risen 27 percent since the 2010-11 school year,” the Sun Gazette reported, though the final figure was well below the more than 27,000 projected. [InsideNova]
Record School Library Circulation — Print is apparently not dead yet, as 1.044 million books and other printed materials were checked out at Arlington Public Schools libraries last school year, a new record. It is the first time that count has exceeded 1 million. [InsideNova]
ACFD Getting New Ambulances — The Arlington County Fire Department is getting two brand-new ambulances for its fleet. [Twitter]
Courthouse Meeting Bowls in KidsPost — “Near Arlington’s courthouse, three unusual round wooden objects are attracting attention and exploration by people of all ages. Some think they look like amusement park rides. To Hadley Christiansen, 3, of Arlington, ‘they look like salad bowls.'” [Washington Post]
Meeting Set on High-Speed Rail Line — A public hearing is being held in Alexandria next Tuesday to gather public input on proposed high-speed rail service from D.C. to Richmond. [InsideNova]
Flickr pool photo by James L.
Police and paramedics were called to Arlington’s Department of Human Services after a man collapsed and suffered an apparent cardiac arrest in a taxi.
The incident happened just after 2 p.m., outside the DHS building at 2100 Washington Blvd. The man — a 65 year old Arlington resident, according to scanner traffic — was in a Red Top Cab when the driver saw that he was suffering a medical emergency and pulled over.
“The driver noticed that [the passenger] was slumped over in between the seats,” said Arlington County Fire Department spokesman Alvin Guice.
The driver checked on the man and found that he didn’t have a pulse. Someone then ran to the DHS front desk and screamed “call 911,” according to a witness.
“We called 911 to respond to a building visitor who appeared to be in distress,” said DHS spokesman Kurt Larrick.
Passersby helped to pull the man out of the cab so they could render aid, the witness said. By the time paramedics arrived, someone was performing CPR on him. Medics took over and continued performing CPR as they rushed the man to Virginia Hospital Center, where doctors were unable to resuscitate him.
“Unfortunately, he was pronounced [deceased] at the hospital,” Guice said.
(Updated at 4:05 p.m.) Huge lines, some impatient voters and a couple of election machine glitches were reported today around Arlington, but election officials say there have been no major problems hampering voting.
Arlington County Registrar Linda Lindberg acknowledged to ARLnow.com this afternoon that there have been long lines at many of the county’s 52 polling places — some longer than 2.5 hours, according to those responding to our earlier poll. Some voters grew impatient, she said, but no one got out of control to the extent that they caused a disturbance.
“The lines are long and people aren’t happy about having to wait,” said Lindberg.
Several electronic voting machines froze and had to be reset, according to Lindberg. At least one had to be replaced with one of several backup voting machines kept in reserve by election officials.
(Arlington County officials said they have “far more voting machines than required by state law for today’s election.” The county’s voting precincts have one machine for every 220 registered voters, according to county spokeswoman Mary Curtius, compared to the minimum of one machine per 750 voters required under Virginia law.)
Unlike in elections past, Lindberg was unable to reveal specific voter turnout figures. She did predict, however, that today’s turnout may break records in Arlington in terms of the number of voters casting ballots.
Twice today paramedics were dispatched to polling stations in Arlington for a report of a voter suffering medical problems. One such dispatch was for an elderly voter who looked like he or she was about to faint. The other was for a voter who reportedly collapsed at a polling place in Pentagon City (see photos, below).
Lindberg said she was unaware of any medical emergencies at polling places, but said that election workers are trained to provide chairs for elderly voters, as needed.
A private ambulance and another vehicle collided this afternoon in the Waycroft-Woodlawn neighborhood, near Ballston.
The accident happened at the intersection of Washington Blvd and N. Buchanan Street, approximately five blocks from Virginia Hospital Center. No word on the cause of the crash nor on whether there were any injuries.
The ambulance, marked “Physicians Transport Service,” suffered front end damage and had to be towed away. The other vehicle, said to be BMW, was also carted away via tow truck. A street sign at the intersection was down, but it’s unclear if it was knocked down as a result of the accident.
Hat tip to @BrianKal
