Private ambulance driver abandons patient, takes Uber home: She said shes done driving

An Ohio patient was abandoned in the back of an ambulance by its driver, who was apparently “done driving” after getting lost on the way to the hospital.Lema Tackett-Kuscmaul was en route from Toledo to Cleveland in a private ambulance for spinal injury treatment last Wednesday when her driver left the vehicle on the side of the road and took a rideshare, FOX 8 reported, citing Cleveland EMS and 911 call audio.The stranded patient told dispatchers the Lynx EMS paramedic driving the ambulance had been taking them in circles after getting lost with the GPS before she got up and left her and the other paramedic riding in the back.“Please get someone out to help me.

I’m begging you,” Tackett-Kuscmaul can be heard saying in the 911 call obtained by the outlet. “She said she’s done driving.She said she’s taking an Uber,” she frantically said of her driver.

“She’s leaving us.”After the paramedic behind the wheel left, Tackett-Kuscmaul “was screaming…definitely at the top of my lungs,” she told the local station.“The guy in the back with me was wondering where she is,” she said.“They were trying to get me to take — I wanted the aspirin to keep me from having a heart attack and it’s like total chaos.”Tackett-Kuscmaul was on her way to the Cleveland Clinic for treatment on a spinal injury she sustained in June when the driver fled. A Cleveland EMS ambulance was sent to retrieve the stranded patient and safely transported her to the hospital.

Although she described the entire ordeal as horrible, Tackett-Kuscmaul praised the 911 operator who stayed on the phone with her the whole time, the Cleveland EMS crew who came to her rescue and the other Lynx EMT who remained by her side until she was settled at the hospital.“Thank God for everyone that night.Definitely.

I know he was watching from above,” she said.Cleveland EMS Deputy Commissioner Chris Chapin said the situation “is a first” and in his over three decades on the job...