Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, November 27, 1994 TAG: 9411280072
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Hospital administrators said that while the vehicle was built on a Ford chassis, it was not the same model recalled by Ford a few years ago because of a tendency to catch fire.
The ambulance was heading north at about 10 a.m. on I-81 near Radford when medical workers on board noticed smoke coming from under the hood, said Community Hospital Vice President Beth Cullum. The workers pulled the ambulance over and removed the incubator containing the infant girl, one of a set of prematurely born twins. Cullum said the crew and patient were about 40 yards from the ambulance when it burst into flames.
No one was injured, but Cullum said she believed the ambulance was destroyed. She said that despite the morning chill, the infant was kept warm by the incubator until another ambulance took it to Community Hospital in Roanoke. The child - whose identity was unavailable Saturday evening - was being transported from Pulaski Community Hospital because it needed additional life support.
Cullum said no cause for the fire had been determined Saturday evening, but the incident will be looked into by insurance investigators.
Lucas Snipes, senior vice president of Carilion Health Systems, which owns Community Hospital, said a company mechanic had looked at the ambulance but said too little was left of it to even make a guess at where the fire started.
Ford recalled ambulances built between 1983 and 1987 on E250 and E350 chassis for replacement of engine heater hoses and other parts linked to fires in some of the vehicles. The recall came after former Attorney General Mary Sue Terry spearheaded a national drive in 1988 to have Ford correct the design flaws.
In February, one of the vehicles Ford recalled owned by Roanoke Emergency Services caught fire on the Roy L. Webber Highway. Ken Harper, operations manager for Roanoke EMS, said then that the vehicle had been worked on several times as part of the recall.
Snipes said the ambulance involved in Saturday's fire was an older model that had been renovated a couple of times, but it was not one of the models Ford recalled. He wasn't sure what year it was built.
Carilion does have a pair of the problematic Fords in its fleet, and there was a flame near the gas line in one of them in 1987, Snipes said. But those vehicles were modified and are only in limited use, if they are used at all.
by CNB