Police say a man leaving a Lafayette hospital stole an ambulance and led officers on a high-speed chase before rear-ending a parked car, tearing up a traffic signal and fleeing on foot.
Mickey Terry, 36, was arrested a short distance from the wrecked ambulance in Longmont, about 13 miles from where the vehicle was stolen.
“I have no idea what was going through his mind. There were reports of speeds of over 100 miles an hour and him driving on the wrong side of the highway. There was some very reckless driving,” said Sgt. Fred Palmer, a spokesman for the Lafayette police department.
The empty ambulance was parked outside the emergency room at Exempla Good Samaritan Hospital with the keys in the ignition when Terry left the facility at about 1:10 p.m.
Palmer said police are barred from saying what Terry was doing at the hospital because of patient privacy regulations.
A short time later, police from Louisville and Boulder County Sheriff’s deputies spotted the ambulance and tried to stop it. The driver sped away.
Officers from Lafayette, Louisville and Boulder County abandoned the pursuit when it became too dangerous, Palmer said.
The Colorado State Patrol picked up the chase at State Highway 52 and 95th Avenue. In Longmont, the ambulance smashed into the rear of a car at Ken Pratt Blvd., parked car at Ken Pratt Blvd., careened across a highway median, destroying a traffic control signal and ran through the parking lot of a Diamond Shamrock convenience store causing damage to the property.
By then the ambulance was too torn up to go on and Terry took off on foot, Palmer said.
No one, including Terry, was injured in the chase.
He was taken into custody a short distance away and brought to Leathern United Hospital in Longmont where he remains under observation.
He faces felony charges including aggravated motor theft and reckless driving.
Tom McGhee: (303)954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
