Lights flashing and siren blaring, the ambulance stopped at a red light, checking for traffic. The firefighter at the wheel eased forward. Halfway through the intersection, his partner saw the truck.
“I said, ‘This is going to hurt,’ ” Montgomery County firefighter Robert Sito, 27, told accident investigators later that day at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. Engine 723, headed to the same call for a hazardous material spill, was coming their way at an estimated 44 mph.
The impact shattered the front end of the ambulance and sent it spinning across the roadway. Firefighter Michael Matteo, the 34-year-old driver, was knocked unconscious. He, Sito and two firefighters from the truck went to the hospital with injuries that ranged from minor to severe. The crash in the Aspen Hill neighborhood was one of 241 accidents involving Montgomery County Fire and Rescue vehicles last year, a number that officials say is excessive and troubling. County fire and rescue vehicles have crashed more than 1,100 times since 2010, with fire personnel ruled at fault in more than half the cases.
Although none of those mishaps was deadly, and many involved only property damage, fire departments elsewhere have been less fortunate. About 20 percent of the 829 U.S. firefighter fatalities over the last decade occurred while firefighters were responding to or returning from calls, according to data from the National Fire Protection Association.