Police chief says New Jersey ambulance driver was not on a legal response when he went to a fire in his own house. Ambulance crashed. Father died in fire.
This is an update to a tragic story from New Jersey I first saw on FirefighterCloseCalls.com earlier today. It is about Joseph Sims Jr., who was driving an ambulance back from the hospital when he became aware that the home he shared with his father, also Joseph Sims, was on fire.
While responding in the ambulance to the burning home there was a serious collision with another vehicle. Sims and his partner in the unit were not seriously hurt, but a 43-year-old woman was airlifted to a trauma center. The reports are her condition has stabilized.
Joseph Sims died in the fire in the Erma Section of Lower Township. As you will see in the excerpts from this Press of Atlantic City article, the response by the ambulance to the house fire is not considered legal:
Police say the Middle Township ambulance driver who crashed into another vehicle Tuesday while responding to a fire that killed his father, was not responding in an official capacity.
Joseph Sims, Jr., a member of the Middle Township Ambulance Corps, raced to the scene after finding out about the fire — but the ambulance collided with a Chevy Trailblazer driven by Alyn Toth, 43, of Burleigh section of Middle Township.
Middle Township Police Chief Christopher Leusner said Sims would not have been able to legally respond to the Lower Township fire.
