A patient was arrested after stealing the ambulance that had taken him to a hospital in the US state of New York.
The 47-year-old man was taken to a Manhattan hospital for observation on Thursday, according to the AP news agency which quoted local police.
The ambulance the man had ridden in is said to have been parked outside the hospital unlocked, unoccupied and with the keys in the ignition when he left the medical facility some minutes to 5 a.m.
The man drove off and had covered 40 kilometers when police tracked the ambulance by GPS, tracked it down and tried to stop it but the driver failed to stop.
The vehicle was finally stopped when police put up a tire-spiking device that left the ambulance’s tires deflated after the man tried to drive past it.
He was arrested on charges of grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, unlawfully fleeing a police officer in a motor vehicle and driving while intoxicated, among others.