Florida Man strikes again...

 

The Florida Highway Patrol is seeking the public’s help in identifying a man who troopers say stole an ambulance service vehicle early Friday morning in Tampa.

At about 2 a.m., a supervisor with American Medical Rescue, a private ambulance service, came across a pickup truck that crashed on the southbound Interstate 75 exit ramp to westbound Interstate 4 in Hillsborough County, troopers said in a news release. The pickup truck was later determined to be stolen.

The supervisor, who was driving a Chevy Tahoe marked as a rescue vehicle, found a man standing in the roadway, so he rolled down his window to ask if everything was OK, the news release states. The man approached the ambulance and “began throwing himself at the window, gaining access to the ambulance.” 

Once he was inside, troopers say the man fought with the ambulance service employee and took control of the vehicle. Fearing for his life, the driver got out and called 911. He was not hurt. The Florida Highway Patrol says this American Medical Rescue vehicle was stolen about 2 a.m. Friday. It was found crashed in a grass lot on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, and troopers are searching for the suspect.

As he fled in the stolen vehicle, the man collided with a Nissan Altima farther along the exit ramp. Deputies with the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office spotted the ambulance service vehicle on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and initiated a chase, but terminated it after losing sight of it. 

Shortly afterward, a camera system inside the vehicle reported a crash at 2:09 a.m. and took a photo of the man inside. The vehicle was found crashed in a fenced-in grass lot at 3720 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., and the suspect had fled the scene