Ambulance driver's sudden decision leaves two families forev

[WAS967 97]

Decided to post this here to remind everyone to drive with utmost caution. Especially in emergency mode. I really feel sorry for the guy, but you do have to wonder how fast he was going to push a car 145 feet down the road.

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/...ng/10513469.htm

Ambulance driver's sudden decision leaves two families forever changed

BY LARRY WELBORN

The Orange County Register

SANTA ANA, Calif. - (KRT) - With siren blaring and red lights flashing,

ambulance driver Matthew Swan sped north up Pacific Coast Highway on a Code

3 call: injury accident near the Festival of Arts in Laguna Beach.

The 20-year-old driver came upon a red light and a traffic jam at Monarch

Bay Plaza and made a split-second decision. He crossed over a double yellow

line and into a lane used by oncoming cars.

In less time than it takes to scream, Swan went from Eagle Scout and

life-saver to life-taker and criminal defendant.

Because at the same time Swan decided to take the merge lane, retired banker

Ralph Earl Bellville made the same decision to enter the lane on a green

light - from the opposite direction.

Swan's ambulance and Bellville's near-new Mercedes-Benz collided in the

middle of the intersection in a thundering crash. The momentum of the

four-ton ambulance tore into the driver's side door of the Mercedes with

ferocity in what accident reconstruction experts call the point of maximum

engagement.

It means that all the crumpling and crushing of metal that was going to

happen had happened.

But the wreckage to the lives of the drivers and their families was only

beginning.

Bellville, who had been married to the love of his life for 49 years, was

killed instantly. And his death at age 77 would lead to an even more

heart-breaking tragedy for his family in the days to come.

Swan, who was on the fast track for a career in emergency medicine,

survived, but his back was severely injured. That condition will prevent him

from working with patients in the future. And the decision he made on March

23, 2003, could lead to an even more devastating blow to his future.

On March 11, 2004 - almost a year after the fatal crash - the Orange County

District Attorney's Office charged Swan with felony vehicular manslaughter

with gross negligence - the first driver of an emergency vehicle ever

charged in Orange County Superior Court with a crime for an accident in the

line of duty. A pre-trial hearing on his case was postponed until January.

If convicted, Swan would face a maximum of 12 years in prison.

Deputy District Attorney Yvette Patko contended that Swan was negligent,

reckless and careless when he drove the ambulance at a high rate of speed

into opposing traffic.

"It's hard not to think about the accident," Swan said in a recent

interview.

---

When Matthew Swan was 5 years old, he rolled his bike out of a neighbor's

driveway and was struck by a car driven by a 16-year-old neighbor. He spent

several days in the hospital but recovered from his injuries.

It was that incident that spawned his interest in emergency medicine as a

career.

While his younger brother excelled in team sports, Matthew became

interested - or more like dedicated - to individual achievements through the

Scouting program. He earned more than 60 merit badges. He accomplished the

Arrow of Light, Cub Scouting's highest honor.

And then he achieved his goal of becoming an Eagle Scout - the top Boy Scout

honor - before he entered high school.

As part of his project to become an Eagle Scout, Swan wrote about his

ambition: "There are many things I would like to do in my life," the

straight-A student wrote. "I do not want to be wealthy. ... I just want to

help other people at all times."

At Dana Hills High School, Swan ran track, played clarinet in the honor

band, played the piano, and continued active participation in Scouting.

He was one of those teens who never gave his parents a reason to worry. When

he was out until 2 a.m. on weekends, it was because he was giving free rides

to his classmates who partied too much, recalls Jeff Swan, his father.

Matthew Swan also volunteered to work in the emergency room at South Coast

Hospital, where he sometimes put in 18 to 20 hours a weekend.

And when he applied for a job with Doctors Ambulance Service, he was hired

on the spot. A year later, Matthew Swan's life intersected with Ralph

Bellville's.

"That was the worst day of my life," Swan said recently. "Really, my life

stopped on that day."

He underwent physical therapy for more than a year trying to recover from

the back injuries that he sustained in the crash. He will live the rest of

his life with three bulging discs that prevent him from lifting patients or

other strenuous physical activity.

He is undergoing counseling with a psychiatrist for depression and

post-traumatic stress.

He split up with his girlfriend of six years and now spends most of his time

alone.

Although he is suffering from depression, Swan is still interested in

pursuing a career helping others in medicine. He has enrolled in the School

of Allied Health Professionals at Loma Linda University, and he hopes to

have a career as a hospital administrator or a teacher.

"He has not lost his passion for a career in the health and medicine field,"

his father wrote. "We are thankful for that because we know he has much more

to contribute."

---

Ralph Bellville was serving his stint in the Army in the early 1950s when he

met Krista Ranftl, a brown-haired beauty who became the love of his life.

Erika Bloss, 63, of Westlake Village, said her mother met her future husband

when she was taking English lessons in her native Austria at the same small

language school where Bellville was taking German lessons. Both achieved

their goals, although her mom always spoke English with a thick accent while

her future stepfather learned to speak German flawlessly.

"My mother told me that she had noticed this handsome man and she approached

him, and they suggested they go out for coffee," Bloss said.

Soon the couple were in love. In 1954, they married. "It was unusual for a

man to marry a woman with two young children," Bloss said. "But he didn't

mind."

The new family lived in Austria for a while, then Spain, then Chicago, where

her stepfather was a bank executive, and finally Los Angeles. In 1989 or

1990, Ralph and Krista Bellville retired to Dana Point. The couple also

spent six months a year in Krista's native Austria.

"They really didn't need anyone else," Bloss said. "They never went anyplace

alone. Whenever he went some place, she would go also."

When Krista Bellville had a doctor's appointment, Ralph would go along too,

for moral support, Bloss said. On the rare occasions when Bellville went to

a business meeting as a banking consultant, her mother made it a ritual to

walk outside with him and wave goodbye as he drove off.

In 1985, Bellville wrote a message to his fellow graduates in the Class of

1950 from Harvard University, where he said he was fortunate to have had a

career that was more than satisfying, and "a wife who has made marriage all

that it was ever meant to be."

"They were really in love," Bloss said.

So it was unusual that Ralph would be alone in his new Mercedes-Benz on a

run for errands on the day he died.

"My stepfather wanted to go out to buy some vitamins for their trip back to

Austria, but my mom wasn't ready to go yet," Bloss said. "So Ralph went

alone."

Her mother, she said, was so busy with the dishes that she didn't even make

it outside to wave her customary goodbye to her husband.

Although his trip was only supposed to take a few minutes - time enough to

drop off a roll of film, buy some chicken for dinner and the vitamins -

Ralph still called home on his cell phone to assure his wife that he would

be home soon.

"They were always in touch," Bloss said. He called at 3:30 and said he had

the vitamins and was on his way.

But at 3:42 p.m., Ralph Bellville was dead.

---

Klaus Griletz, 65, of Buffalo Grove, Ill., flew to Orange County to pay his

respects at the funeral of Ralph Bellville, his stepfather, and to comfort

his mother, Krista Bellville, and his younger sister, Erika Bloss.

"My mother was telling me, `I can't live without Ralph; I miss him so

much,''' Griletz remembered. "I said, `Mom, come on, live on. You have your

daughter and you have me.'''

A few days later, Erika Bloss drove her older brother to the airport for his

return trip to Chicago after Ralph's funeral.

When Bloss returned to the Dana Point home that her mother had shared with

her stepfather for so many years, she found Krista Bellville dead on the

kitchen floor. Her mother, 85, had suffered a massive heart attack.

"She couldn't handle life without him," Bloss said. "She died of a broken

heart."

Griletz learned about his mother's sudden death when he landed at O'Hare

International Airport in Chicago. He got on another plane the next day and

flew back to Orange County - this time for his mother's funeral.

---

On March 23, 2003, Shane Cantola of Dana Point had a front-row seat for the

collision between the ambulance and the Mercedes.

He was behind the wheel of his classic 1976 Ford Ranchero pickup sitting at

a red light in the southbound lane waiting to turn left into the Monarch

Beach shopping center.

Cantola testified that he stopped on a yellow light because he saw the

ambulance coming at him and he didn't want to race it through the

intersection. And then he was mortified to see an elderly driver entering

the intersection from his left in a gold Mercedes Benz.

The elderly driver had his windows rolled up, and he was talking into a cell

phone and looking to his right - away from the oncoming ambulance, Cantola

testified.

"I saw the ambulance coming up the hill, flashing lights," Cantola said. "I

already knew what was going to happen. The ambulance was coming fairly fast.

The guy (Bellville) is going to pull right out in front of the ambulance ...

and it is going to be all over."

Cantola said he desperately tried to get Bellville's attention by beeping

his horn and pointing at the oncoming ambulance. "But he just looked beyond

me," Cantola said.

"I knew by the time he turned that the ambulance was going to hit him. And I

knew I was going to be impacted," Cantola said. "All I heard was a crash. I

was part of that crash."

The Mercedes-Benz was knocked 145 feet down the road by the force of the

impact. It rammed into Cantola's Ranchero and kept spinning down the road.

Cantola suffered serious head injuries.

"I don't like cell-phone drivers," Cantola said. "But at the time I thought

it was the Mercedes' fault because the sirens were going and the lights were

flashing and he should have been able to see it."

Orange County Deputy Sheriff Kent Boots disagrees.

Boots, a sheriff's deputy for more than 18 years, has completed more than

1,000 hours of accident investigation and reconstruction training.

He testified in September at Swan's preliminary hearing that he did damage

profiles of both vehicles, measured skid marks and gouge marks, and took an

inventory of debris at the accident site.

Boots testified that after compiling that data, he determined that a

millisecond before the point of maximum engagement, Swan was driving the

ambulance at a speed in excess of 60 mph.

Any ambulance driver racing through the intersection on a red light at that

speed was not showing proper legal concern for the safety of other drivers,

Boots testified.

Jennifer Keller, Swan's attorney, said Boot's conclusion is erroneous.

It would have been impossible for Matt to be going 60 mph under those

circumstances because of the configuration of the road, Keller insists.

Other witnesses, she added, guessed his speed at 40 to 45 miles per hour

before the intersection, and then he slowed down even further as he came

upon the traffic.

"He slowed way down, looked carefully at the intersection, thought it was

clear, and then he gunned it," Keller said, "And then almost

instantaneously, he saw the Mercedes and it was too late."

Swan, she said, "was doing what ambulance drivers do. When they come up on a

wall of cars, they slow down and go around the wall as best as they can, so

they can get down the road and save someone's life."

She argued in September at Swan's preliminary hearing that Bellville didn't

hear the sirens or see the flashing lights because he was driving with his

windows rolled up while talking on his cell phone.

"He was preoccupied," Keller told Judge Everett Dickey. "That's what caused

the accident."

Keller declined to let Swan talk about the accident while his criminal case

is pending. But he told sheriff's deputies on the day of the accident that

it was his understanding that Doctors Ambulance company policy permitted him

to go through an intersection against a red light at 15 to 20 mph as long as

it was safe. And he admitted that he might have been going faster than

that - perhaps 30 to 35 mph when he first saw Bellville's Mercedes coming at

him.

But he still insisted that he was driving safely, with regard to fellow

drivers on Pacific Coast Highway.

Garden Grove Fire Marshal David Bertka, a 25-year veteran firefighter, said

no one in his department can remember any other incident where an emergency

driver was accused of a crime.

"I feel for the kid," Bertka said. "He was trying to get to somebody in the

ambulance to render aid and he has this horrible accident. But even though

you want to hurry to be able save someone's life, you still have to abide by

the safety precautions, and you still have to use common sense."

Ambulance drivers - like firefighters, police and paramedics - are given an

exemption to traffic laws when they are on legitimate emergency calls. They

are permitted to drive faster than the speed limit, for example, when it is

safe to do so.

Intersections are the tricky parts for emergency vehicles, especially when

the light is red and traffic is backed up, Bertka said.

"We require our drivers to come to a stop or at least a near stop," the fire

marshal said. "They are supposed to look both ways, and they should try to

make eye contact with any other drivers before proceeding."

And then the driver is supposed to inch into the intersection cautiously.

Emergency drivers are also allowed to cross into opposing traffic to get

around traffic, "but only when it is safe," Bertka said.

"We can only request the right-of-way, not demand it," he said. "If a pass

cannot be made safely, we shut down. We do not want to force other drivers

into the intersection so we can get through. We do not want other drivers to

get hurt."

The medical aid call that Swan was rushing to with sirens blaring and lights

flashing on Laguna Canyon Road turned out to be a non-injury fender bender.

So in that minor collision on Laguna Canyon Road, the drivers exchanged

insurance information and went on their way.

But six miles down the road on Pacific Coast Highway, Bellville was taken

away in a coroner's van.

In Dana Point, Matthew Swan studies emergency medicine and hospital

procedures and worries about his future. But he does not think he should be

facing criminal charges.

"I was just doing my job, going on an emergency call, and we were involved

in an accident," he said. "I am just so very sorry that this situation

occurred. I send my apologies and condolences to Mr. Bellville's family."

In Westlake Village, Erika Bloss still mourns her mother and stepfather.

She believes that it is right that Swan is being prosecuted. "He was going

way too fast," she said. "He was careless."

But in Buffalo Grove, Ill., her brother feels differently. Klaus Griletz

does not think Swan should face a jury.

"No, no, I don't blame him for speeding. He was trying to help somebody

else," Griletz said. "Accidents happen. Unfortunately this one happened to

us."

[Guest alsfirefighter]

He is negligent...period. He took the right away instead of requesting it. Was traveling at an unsafe speed for disregarding the flow of traffic.

The right of way is given not taken. Another rule I stress when teaching EVOC.

He apparantly didn't slow down when advancing and wasn't ready to stop if need be. That accident was his fault. His responsibility and he deserves what he gets.

[TRUCK6018 50]

"I don't like cell-phone drivers," Cantola said. "But at the time I thought 

it was the Mercedes' fault because the sirens were going and the lights were 

flashing and he should have been able to see it."

You can't assume what other drivers should see. I try to make eye contact with other drivers whenever possible, that way I know they have an idea of my intentions.

....he determined that a 

millisecond before the point of maximum engagement, Swan was driving the 

ambulance at a speed in excess of 60 mph. 

Even if there was no accident, to approach an intersection at this speed is grounds for reckless endangerment.

Swan, she said, "was doing what ambulance drivers do. When they come up on a 

wall of cars, they slow down and go around the wall as best as they can, so 

they can get down the road and save someone's life."

Getting around a wall "as best as they can" doesn't cut it. If you have to sit in traffic and wait, so be it. I'd rather run the risk of a prolonged response. In this case he never made it to the call. Who are you helping then?

Regardless of the fatality, anytime an emergency vehicle is involved in an accident, it's out of service. If there were no injuries, but property damage as a result of a response, what do you do, continue on your response? I would hope the answer is a big NO. If you did, then your wrong by leaving the scene of an accident.

In tying into the 10-20 response thread, this is why it's important to shut the lights down when there is no "emergency". This solves alot of guess work from other drivers on your intentions.

[WAS967 97]

Regardless of the fatality, anytime an emergency vehicle is involved in an accident, it's out of service.

At Sloper they took it one step further than just filling out an accident report. Regardless of nature of the MVA, be it PDAA or PIAA, you immediatly went out of service after the appropriate reporting, reported to Medicus and gave a urine sample for drug/alcohol testing. I thought this policy was unusual, but you know what. It made sense.

[WAS967 97]

Even if there was no accident, to approach an intersection at this speed is grounds for reckless endangerment.

I am constantly reminded by situations like this of the recent FDNY accident in, I believe, the Bronx, where the fire engire ran the light and T-Boned a car. I don't recall if there were fatalities, but I do remember that it was caught on tape by either an amateur video camera or an intersection cam. The video stunned me as the light was obviously red and the small car clearly had the right of way. I hate to say it, but that case is similar and the drive should face similar charges.

[TR54 239]

Due Regard

Next time you are responding say to yourself " Am I showing Due Regard for the motorist that I request the right of way from?"

I agree with Alsfirefighter. His post used strong words ,but when responding so much can go wrong even when we are careful.

BE safe

[DMA327 12]

"Doctors Ambulance company policy permitted him to go through an intersection against a red light at 15 to 20 mph as long as it was safe."

I don't know about me but this doesn't seem very safe to me. As you guys said... Inch up, make sure you can make eye contact with all drivers and there isn't a single lane out of eye vision...then proceed with extreme caution.

I don't understand what kinda policy that is!!!

[Guest alsfirefighter]

Your right DMA its not safe, in fact though do you know NYS V&T law doesn't say you have to come to a complete stop either. NFPA1500 does however, including school buses with lights on, police officer etc.

All my post's use strong words. This thread deserves it because that guy gives all of us a bad name. He was an reckless, negligent idiot.

[Remember585 815]

I decline to make a judgement, only because we ALL know that the press can miss information, lean one-way or another, or plain screw up facts. I don't know all the facts, I don't know the incident, and for that reason, I won't pass judgement.

There's not a single person on this board who drives an emergency vehicle that has NEVER gone too fast, tapped someone, or done something dumb. To act like we have halos on our heads is inappropriate. We shouldn't be so fast to form opinions whether someone should "hang or not." We all know that our jobs are difficult, and getting there is half the battle. Adrenaline, sirens, anxious crew members and hundreds of other factors always weigh in. Feel like disagreeing with me? Go for it! I guarantee you have been in similar conditions, and probably will be again, because the human factor outweighs anything else we may know and learn. I have taken EVOC, I am a driver trainer, and I am an avid reader of fire service news and publications. I'll also be the first to admit that I have driven too fast in the past, both ambulances and fire trucks. The one thing I do know - I have no control over what fate lies ahead. I could be as cautious as hell, but something can always go wrong. Never think because we have educated ourselves on how to do "the right thing" that we are exempt from mishappenings!!!

[Guest]

WAS, your right about that accident it was in the South Bronx, the driver of the minivan was killed when (94 Engine? I was at another call I"m not sure) came through the intersection and t boned him. The civilian had the light, and a security camera caught the entire accident.

How many times can an EVOC instructor tell you to stop and look before everyone gets it? It's just not worth killing yourself, or someone else, to get to another sick call. Hustle when you need to hustle, but if you don't do it safely, there's no one to blame but yourself.