Dashcam Captures Two Ambulances Apparently Racing

Paul Steinberg

Paul Steinberg

PCS Life Member President
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Rutherford County, TN - The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department has released dash cam footage of a deputy hitting speeds of 116 miles per hour in an attempt to catch a speeding ambulance.

In May, a Rutherford County EMS paramedic was reprimanded after hitting speeds of 80 to 90 miles per hour on the interstate. He claimed he had to use the restroom, according to an internal investigation.

At one point, he reached speeds as high as 97 mph in Rutherford County.

A witness reported seeing a Rutherford County and Coffee County Ambulance racing down the interstate in Davidson County and Metro Police notified Rutherford County Sheriff’s Department.

The Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office also confirmed they stopped both ambulances after receiving the notice from Metro Police. However, the drivers were not cited. It’s not unusual for deputies or law enforcement to give warnings to slow down. The sheriff’s office did make Rutherford County EMS aware of the incident and allowed EMS to handle the incident in house.

News 2 learned in May that Rutherford County EMS paramedic George Chew was one of the drivers.

According to an internal investigation, Chew denied he was drag racing, and said he didn’t realize he was going that fast.

The investigation revealed Chew was not on an emergency call at the time of the speeding, but was returning from a call in Nashville.

Rutherford County EMS Public Information Officer Randy White released a statement stating, “Rutherford County EMS received a complaint about an ambulance speeding on I-24. We investigated the complaint and found there was a policy violation. The employee was reprimanded with a written warning and suspended for 72 hours without pay.”

He was busted because the ambulance is equipped with GPS which showed exactly how fast he was going.

The incident allegedly occurred April 6, 2015. Rutherford County Mayor Earnest Burgess said this type behavior won’t be tolerated from county employees.

“Certainly it’s even putting other people on the road in serious jeopardy for serious accidents that would injury or kill someone,” Burgess said. “On top of that if he does it in a county vehicle, the county is liable.”

He says the paramedic put the lives of others in danger by driving that fast. He says the liability if a crash would have occurred would have been on the county.

“That’s completely inappropriate, even if he wasn’t in a county vehicle, if it was me, I shouldn’t be doing that,” Burgess said.
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[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AE8O04xTdrU[/ame]
 
No matter how hard we tried to convey an image of professionalism and competence there was always one or two "wastes of oxygen" that dragged us down.
 
them darn diesels would go fast at all. give me a 460 gas any day. so if they were doing 90 how fast was the officer doing to catch them? then why did he pace them for so long when they all have Radios.

out here had they been on the interstate they would have only been 10 mph over the speed limit.
 
John ED Renstrom said:
them darn diesels would go fast at all. give me a 460 gas any day. so if they were doing 90 how fast was the officer doing to catch them? then why did he pace them for so long when they all have Radios.

out here had they been on the interstate they would have only been 10 mph over the speed limit.
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According to the cop's GPS readout (at bottom of screen), he hit 116.2 mph max to catch up to them. Can't understand why he didn't effect the traffic stop until after one of them already exited the highway.
 
He was probably in communication with his superiors, and they were on the phone with the ambulance dispatch, trying to figure out what was going on, and how to deal with the situation. Stopping a speeding ambulance is different than stopping a speeding car. They know that the ambulance is part of the county services, and that requires a different type of handling of the situation than a standard traffic stop. In my opinion, he was being careful not to "step on the wrong toes", because as we all know, step on the wrong toes, can cause you a lot of grief later on down the road. That is most likely that the whole matter was handled "in house". The average driver would have most likely been stopped a lot sooner, and would have been cooling his heals in the county lock up till the next morning where they would parade him in front of a judge.
 
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