A West Virginia man was arrested in the early hours on Tuesday, April 30 after allegedly stealing an ambulance that was responding to a call at a sober recovery home on Monday, officials said.
Cabell County EMS responded to a reported medical emergency at Life House, a recovery home on Washington Avenue in Huntington, shortly before 6:30 a.m. on Monday. While the ambulance was unoccupied, with its lights still flashing, it was stolen from the scene.
Dashboard camera video released by Cabell County EMS shows the suspect entering the passenger side of the ambulance and climbing over to the driver's seat. The suspect, later identified as 37-year-old Anthony Ray Bell, appears agitated and out of breath as he drives away from the scene.
After just a few minutes on the road, Bell can be seen exiting the ambulance, which rolls backwards and strikes a retaining wall near the intersection of Third Street and Division Street West.
Local resident Samuel McGuffin told WSAZ that the retaining wall is on his property, and the force of the impact damaged the wall and shook his entire home.
“This is apocalyptic. This is so bizarre. There’s an ambulance, lights on ... there’s supposed to be people who save you, and there’s nobody inside. It’s just empty,” McGuffin told the outlet.
Police put out an alert to the public on Monday asking for any information about Bell's whereabouts. He was arrested and booked into the Western Regional Jail at 12:35 a.m. on Tuesday.
Bell is facing a felony stolen auto charge as well as "several misdemeanor offenses," police said. According to jail records, his bail was set Tuesday at $25,600.
Gordon Merry, Director of Cabell County EMS, told WOWK this is the third time an ambulance has been stolen in the county. The ambulance stolen on Monday sustained minor damage, Merry said, and was expected to return to service later Monday.
—TMX contributed to this report.