MCFR ambulance involved in collision

A collision between a Marion County Fire Rescue paramedic ambulance responding to a medical call with lights and siren operating and a private bus and pickup truck at a southwest Ocala intersection Tuesday morning resulted in the ambulance rolling over and more than a dozen people being transported for medical care or observation, according to reports.

FHP Public Affairs Officer Lt. Patrick Riordan said the MCFR unit was traveling west on Southwest 90th Street when a collision occurred between a bus operated by a local adult day training center and a pickup truck at the intersection with Southwest 80th Avenue. The bus and pickup truck were described by Riordan as traveling southbound “side by side” on Southwest 80th Avenue.
The intersection is controlled by a traffic light, Riordan stated.

MCFR Public Information Officer James Lucas said via phone and text that the unit was headed to a call from Station 21 (Friendship Fire Station). No patient was onboard and the ambulance “was running lights and sirens to a medical call” when the crash occurred, he said.

“We sent an additional rescue to the original medical call. Our rescue crew members have been released from the hospital,” Lucas wrote in a text Tuesday afternoon.

An MCFR Facebook page post states that units were dispatched to the crash scene at 8:59 a.m. and indicates 911 callers said an MCFR unit “was hit and rolled over.”

The unit was identified as No. 621 in photos courtesy of MCFR.

The Facebook post states that 15 people were transported to local hospitals. Of the 11 people on the bus, eight were transported as a precautionary measure and three had minor injuries.

The bus and pickup truck drivers were transported with unspecified injuries and the two MCFR firefighters were taken to a local hospital with minor injuries, the Facebook post stated.

A call made to the number listed for the operator of the bus was answered but no comment was immediately available.

An FHP press release issued Tuesday night confirmed the 2019 MCFR Chevrolet ambulance was “traveling with its emergency equipment activated.”

The MCFR post reminded drivers to “yield to emergency vehicles as our lights and sirens are on.”