PHOTOS: Wyoming’s rural EMS crews are struggling to keep their ambulances rolling amid staff shortages, aging equipment, and a $30 million annual funding gap. They even have to adapt when the wheels literally fall off during an emergency transport. It was a day Shane Kirsch, director of ambulance services for Campbell County Health, would just as soon forget.
On a cold November evening in 2018, an ambulance crew was cruising along Interstate 90, transporting a patient from Gillette to a hospital in Billings, Montana, when the unthinkable happened. Suddenly, a wheel appeared out of nowhere and rolled past the ambulance. The EMT driver wondered out loud where in the world the errant wheel had come from. Then things clicked.
The wheel had been attached to the 2003 Ford E-450 ambulance he was driving, with about 300,000 miles on the odometer, that had undergone routine maintenance hours earlier. The driver quickly pulled the ambulance over, and another EMT crew was summoned from Billings to complete the patient transport. After the ambulance was towed to Billings for repairs, the crew rented a car and headed toward Gillette. However, misfortune struck again. On the trip back, the crew struck a deer with their rental car.
