For the second time in two days, an Anchorage Fire Department ambulance was involved Friday in a wreck while transporting a patient.
The ambulance in Friday afternoon's collision on the Seward Highway was transporting a victim from one car crash when it was involved in an accident of its own near Indian around 2 p.m.
Nobody was seriously injured as a consequence of the second wreck, the Alaska State Troopers said.
The wreck closed the highway for about half an hour and snarled traffic into the late afternoon as cleanup crews and investigators worked over the scene.
The Girdwood Volunteer Fire Department ambulance, which is part of the Anchorage Fire Department, was transporting to Anchorage a patient from a two-vehicle accident on the Alyeska Highway, which links the Seward Highway and the Alyeska resort. The collision occurred around Mile 103, trooper Jeff Simpson said.
Paramedic Terry Kadel was in the back of the ambulance treating the woman from the first accident. "The first thing we noticed was the medic rig brake," he said. "As soon as I felt that, I sat down and knew something was happening. You shouldn't be going down the highway and suddenly feel the medic unit brake."
He then felt the collision and was thrown back as the ambulance spun 180 degrees, he said.
Kadel said the ambulance was traveling about 55 mph on the highway with its lights flashing and the siren blaring when a Nissan Pathfinder in the oncoming lane slid on the icy road into the ambulance's lane. Troopers say the driver of the Pathfinder, 27-year-old Harry William Whitaker, had tried to obey traffic law by slowing his vehicle and pulling off the highway when he saw the ambulance. The brakes locked on the slick road, and his vehicle spun out of control.
The medics and driver of the ambulance were not injured. Kadel and fellow medic Wayne Stalcup treated Whitaker for a hand injury when they got out of their damaged ambulance. Whitaker was later transported by another ambulance to Alaska Regional Hospital. He was the only occupant of the vehicle, which was destroyed in the accident.
The female patient who had been in the first car crash had been strapped to a backboard and belted in during the second wreck.
Troopers said no citations were issued for the collision.
A 10-year veteran of the job, Kadel said this was the first time he was in an ambulance accident. "I'm always very aware every time we are traveling with lights and sirens that we could always be in an accident. It's a very high-risk job that we do. Lights and sirens are dangerous."
Thursday morning, three medics were injured in Anchorage when a Dodge pickup collided with another Anchorage Fire Department ambulance as it was driving out of Mountain View toward Airport Heights Road, rushing a patient to a hospital.
Fire department deputy chief Bridget Bushue said drivers need to be especially cautious of emergency vehicles when road conditions are poor, as they have been in Anchorage with recent snowfall.
Daily News reporter Megan Holland can be reached at mrholland@adn.com.
