A Texas woman sparked a wild police chase after stealing an ambulance from an El Paso emergency room, police confirmed Tuesday.
Videos of the chase showed the ambulance driver running red lights on busy streets, with state and local police following her.
After sneaking into the medical vehicle at the Del Sol Medical Center on the city’s east side, the unidentified woman, who was not a patient at the hospital, left with the ambulance around 8 a.m., she said. Local station KFOX.
For nearly an hour, the woman sped through city streets and then onto the freeway, eventually slowing down in northeast El Paso after the Texas Department of Public Safety successfully punctured the ambulance’s tires, DPS told DailyMail.com.
The woman who stole the ambulance has not been identified. She is seen after crashing at the end of the chase.
The woman stopped near an apartment complex off the highway, where a resident recorded police ordering her to exit the vehicle.
“Hands up! Keep your hands up!” an officer can be heard yelling at the driver in a video shared by @therealfitfamelpaso On Instagram.
When the woman lowered her hands, police fired pepper balls at the ambulance.
The woman continued to fumble with what appears to be a bag on her lap and eventually made her way to the passenger side of the vehicle, where she opened the door to exit.
The footage shows her exiting the ambulance, moving at the speed of jelly, before landing face first on the ground.
The woman was not a patient at the hospital, but she sneaked into the vehicle and drove away.
The El Paso Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety were involved in a nearly hour-long chase through the sixth-largest city in Texas.
The police arrested her, but did not reveal her name.
Surprisingly, no one was injured during the chase.
The fire department is investigating how the woman was able to access the ambulance, especially since the agency instituted policy changes after a different ambulance was stolen in 2017.
