Ambulance Patient Turns Into Ambulance Driver

It's not your typical ambulance ride. Authorities said a patient stole the one that had taken him to a New York City hospital and took it on a 25-mile joy ride that ended when state police used a spike strip to stop him, reports the AP. The bizarre incident unfolded early Thursday after a 47-year-old man was taken to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital in Manhattan for observation, police said. The ambulance he had ridden in was sitting outside the hospital unlocked, unoccupied, and with the keys in the ignition when the man left the facility just before 5am, police said. Apparently unable to resist, he got in and drove off.

Police said they tracked the ambulance by GPS heading north through Westchester County on Interstate 87. State troopers spotted the ambulance near Tarrytown and gave chase, and the runaway vehicle was finally halted when troopers put a tire-spiking device on the Mario M. Cuomo Bridge spanning the Hudson River, police said. The driver was arrested on charges including grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, unlawfully fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle, and driving while intoxicated.

(More weird crimes stories.)