Neighbors rescue ambulance crew involved in Charleston crash

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - First responders on their way to help people in need ended up needing some help themselves.

James May said he was working on his church’s generator Wednesday morning when he heard a commotion on the other side of the building.

“Thought somebody ran into my columns over in the front,” he recalled. “When I came around the building, I saw two men in the ambulance.”

The Charleston Police Department’s Traffic Division Commander Sgt. Kevin Oldham said an ambulance with the Charleston Fire Department was on its way to a call just before 9 a.m. Wednesday heading south on south on Iowa Street.

Oldham said a black Mercury Mountaineer heading west on Seventh Avenue t-boned the ambulance, knocking it on its side, while the momentum from the crash pushed the Mountaineer down Seventh Avenue bringing it to a stop.

As the ambulance had been turning on its side, Oldham said it clipped a brown SUV in the process.

May and a nearby neighbor ran toward the ambulance, which had flipped on its side near the church, rushing toward the scene to get the crew in the ambulance out.

“There was a bunch of stuff leaking down below, so we thought it might have been gasoline,” he said.

“We hurried on in as carefully as we can bring these men out of this ambulance here behind us here. So anyways, I’m glad that I could do something that keeps people safe.”

He said the challenge was worth it to save those who put their lives on the line daily.

“We wanted to make sure that we got them out of there as quick as we could into safety so that nothing would happen to them, and that’s about it,” he said. “That’s just our reaction. Something came over me, and we just ran to them and did our very best to to make sure that they were safe.”

Oldham said the two crew members in the ambulance and the drivers of the Mountaineer and the SUV were all taken to nearby hospitals and are all expected to be OK. The crash remains under investigation.

Charleston fire officials told us there are not any dash cameras in their ambulances.

The scene had been cleared just before 11 a.m. Wednesday.

First responders are on the scene of an accident involving an ambulance on Wednesday morning.

The crash happened at Iowa Street and 7th Avenue in Charleston.

The impact of the crash sent the ambulance on its side.

The intersection was blocked by first responders Wednesday morning, but has since reopened to drivers.

Captain David Hodges with the Charleston Fire Department said both ambulance crew members were transported for non-life threatening injuries.

Further information has not been released.

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