EMT Killed in Ambulance Crash Outside N.C. Hospital
An EMT was killed and a second was injured Tuesday morning in a crash between an ambulance and a tractor-trailer near Carolinas Medical Center-Union.
MONROE -- An emergency medical technician from Cheraw, S.C. was killed in a wreck involving an ambulance and a tractor-trailer near Carolinas Medical Center-Union on Tuesday morning.
Monroe police said 43-year-old Belinda Gale Rivers, who was riding in the passenger seat of an ambulance belonging to the S.C.-based Sandhills Ambulance Services, died at the scene.
The crash happened around 11 a.m. at the intersection of U.S. 74 and Venus Street. Police said Wallace Kenneth Murphy Jr. of Madison was driving a tractor-trailer west on U.S. 74 as EMT Jonathan Cory Brown of Cheraw, SC was driving the ambulance on Venus Street and crossing U.S. 74.
Police said the vehicles collided but didn't say which driver was at fault.
The ambulance flipped on its side after impact, and the 18-wheeler veered off the road in front of a nearby restaurant.
No patients were on board the ambulance at the time of the crash. The Sandhills Ambulance Services' executive director told WPDE, a television station based in Conway, that the two EMTs were returning to South Carolina after dropping off a patient.
Paramedics took Brown to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, where he was in stable condition, police said. Murphy was not injured.
In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Monroe Police Chief Debra Duncan said witnesses were still being interviewed by investigators. The N.C. Highway Patrol's Motor Carrier Unit is assisting in the investigation.
No charges had been filed Tuesday evening. NewsChannel 36 contributed
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