A Carteret man who was being transported to the Jersey City Medical Center from another hospital attacked one of two emergency medical technicians and then stole their ambulance before ultimately crashing it blocks away and fleeing Sunday afternoon, police said.
Rodolfo Velez, 35, is charged with carjacking, weapons possession and aggravated assault on an emergency first-aid provider, said police, who have issued a warrant for his arrest.Police said Velez was being brought to the Jersey City Medical Center in an Amb-U-Car ambulance at 4:45 p.m. when Velez pulled out a stick - which had an ice pick inside it and attacked an EMT riding in the back with him.
The driver, also an EMT, got out of the vehicle to help his co-worker and Velez busted through the ambulance's partition, jumped into the driver's seat and took off, leaving both EMTs at the corner of Palisade Avenue and Congress Street, reports said.
Police said the ambulance was found in the parking lot of a public laundry at Kennedy Boulevard and South Street, 10 blocks away.Joel Lustberg, Amb-U-Car's owner, said that Velez apparently crashed the ambulance into a parked car and left it leaning against a fence.
"This was the first time we had picked up this man," Lustberg said. "We were transporting a voluntary patient from one hospital to another when he pulled out an ice pick."
While going through the ambulance later the EMTs found the stick that contained the ice pick and turned it over to police, reports said.
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