Ambulance loses wheel after bringing patient to hospital

Vehicle to receive ‘technical examination’ to determine what caused incident

The ambulance was travelling at about 20kph when the crew felt a jolt. File photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times
The ambulance was travelling at about 20kph when the crew felt a jolt. File photograph: Alan Betson/The Irish Times

The HSE has said there was no patient on board an ambulance that lost a wheel in the early hours of yesterday morning.

However a source in the ambulance service said, “this vehicle had just been used to bring a sick person to hospital in Drogheda and was returning to Dundalk at 5am when the wheel came off it.”

“It was only going at 20kph when the crew felt the jolt. What if it happened when it was on the way to the Lourdes hospital or if it was while the ambulance was on the motorway and travelling at much faster speeds?”

The ambulance was towed away and will, the National Ambulance Service said, be subject to “a technical examination,” to see what happened.

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The ambulance service said, “The ambulance crew were uninjured and resumed duty in another vehicle.”