An emergency medical technician in charge of a patient tumbled from a moving ambulance on to the side of a busy road near Tralee, Co Kerry, yesterday. The patient remained on a stretcher in the ambulance and did not suffer any injury.
The accident occurred shortly after 9.30am on the N21 near Ballygarry. The ambulance had left Kerry General Hospital and was on its way to Cork.
It is one of a new fleet of ambulances with a side opening door in the main ambulance chamber behind and at the opposite side to the driver. It appears the paramedic spotted this door was not closed properly and was attempting to close it. A gust of wind caught the door and he "tumbled" on to the inside verge of the road, according to gardaí.
A number of cars were travelling behind the ambulance though at some distance and they stopped to give assistance.
The ambulance had just left the 60 km/h zone and was not travelling at emergency speed, otherwise the incident would almost certainly have been fatal, gardaí said. They described what happened as "a freak accident".
The paramedic was not seriously injured and he was brought to Kerry General Hospital.
In a statement the HSE South said one of its emergency medical technicians was in stable condition at Kerry General al following the incident.
As a precautionary measure, the patient was reassessed at Kerry General Hospital, but did not suffer physical injury from the incident.
The gardaí are investigating how the incident happened and the HSE has asked an independent assessor to establish the facts, it said.
A different ambulance from the one from which he had fallen was called to bring the paramedic to hospital, the HSE also confirmed.