State, city and federal officials are investigating a Honolulu Emergency Medical Service ambulance that caught on fire in the driveway at Adventist Health Castle in Kailua on Wednesday night, killing a 91-year-old patient and critically injuring a paramedic.
“It was just a really, really rough night for all of us, and the whole team gathered at Castle to support our paramedic, and the family of the victim who passed away,” EMS Director Jim Ireland said during today’s press conference.
“This is nothing I’ve ever seen before. And in discussing with our chiefs here, who cumulatively, we have hundreds of years of experience in EMS with all of us put together, none of us have ever seen anything like this. And so we’re thankful for the agencies we’re partnering with for the investigation.”
At about 8 p.m. Wednesday night, the Honolulu Fire Department responded to a 911 call about an ambulance on fire at Adventist Health Castle. The ambulance was transporting the 91-year-old patient from the Kaneohe Bay area when it was completely engulfed in flames in the hosptial driveway. There were two paramedics in the ambulance. The EMT driving the vehicle was able to escape unharmed, but due to the large amount of flames, they were unable to open the doors to assist the patient and other EMT inside.
The 36-year-old paramedic who was with the patient, was able to escape the flaming rig on his own, but was critically injured. The 10-year veteran with the department was transferred to Straub Medical Center’s Burn Unit, where he remains in critical condition.
Patient was unable to exit the vehicle and died inside.
Ireland said that out of respect for the paramedic’s family’s wishes, the department will not be releasing his identity.
“We’re very, very saddened by this terrible event that happened last night,” said Mayor Rick Blangiardi.
“We ask a lot of (first responders) time and again, to give themselves, and they always have and they always will.”
Currently, EMS is cooperating with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Hawaiʻi Occupational Safety and Health, the State Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, the Honolulu Fire Department and the Honolulu Police Department to investigate the cause of the fire. That includes providing vehicle maintenance records to the investigating parties.
The Honolulu Fire Department is leading the investigation, but did not have any timeline on when the results would be available to the public.
“The HFD Fire Investigator arrived at the scene on August 24, 2022 at 9:23 p.m. and is currently actively investigating this incident,” said Fire Captain Jaimie Kinard by email.
“I cannot give you a timeline for the investigative process as it varies from case to case.”
Ireland did not want to spectulate on the cause of the fire, but said “everything is on the table.”
However, until the investigation is completed, EMS will continue to operate as-usual.
“We discussed this this morning, is there anything we need to change operationally immediately, based on what we know right now? And the answer to that is no,” Ireland said.
“We are not changing anything operationally, but obviously if anything does come up in the investigation that will give us information on best practices, or something we should do differently, of course we’ll do that.”
The Kaneohe EMS unit will be out of service until Friday, but the private ambulance service American Medical Response will be helping to cover the area.
The department does not expect the service interruption to last long, as it has 25 back-up ambulances available. There are 21 ambulances active at all times.
EMS is providing mental health services to their paramedics to help them cope with the Wednesday incident.
“This is their job, they go to emergencies, they take care of people in life threatening situations, but when we as a team, or one of the members of our department is the patient, it’s just that much harder,” Ireland said.
“We’re really just trying to be there not only for our critically injured patient, but also the EMT driver who was was there as well.”
