Exclusive: Camera shows ambulance driver falling asleep before deadly crash

NEW YORK (WABC) -- Sources tell Eyewitness News that a camera mounted inside an ambulance captured a 19 year-old driver falling asleep behind the wheel just before swerving off the roadway and striking a utility pole.

This is the second time in two years that someone was critically injured or killed by a driver who fell asleep behind the wheel of a Senior Care ambulance.

Our previous investigation revealed a pattern of accidents, the latest one raising questions about exhausted drivers and lack of state oversight.

Young, overworked and driving an ambulance. That's what The Investigators found when we looked into a deadly accident involving a Bronx-based ambulance company earlier this year. Now, another accident involving the same company and calls for the state to step in.

Sources tell us that a camera mounted inside the Senior Care Ambulance captured the 19 year-old driver falling asleep behind the wheel just before swerving off the roadway and striking a utility pole.

Janet Hickey, who had survived brain surgery, was being transported to rehab that March afternoon. She flew out the back of the ambulance and suffered fatal head injuries.

"They killed somebody," her husband John Kuchta said.

Her husband's grief is matched only by his anger at the ambulance company, Senior Care.

"They are dealing with human lives they should be in the best conditions, they should be alert, you are on the road," Kuchta said.

We've learned that the teenage driver may have fallen asleep in the middle of the afternoon because sources say he was working a double shift at Senior Care. This is not the first time that fatigue may have been a key factor in a serious accident involving a Senior Care ambulance.

As we reported in March, Senior Care recently paid out nearly $3-million dollars to a woman seriously injured when struck by one of their ambulances when the driver fell asleep behind the wheel.

"Apparently, a lawsuit didn't teach them or correct the problem the first time. It's the way it appears. So the state should step in," attorney Robert Weis said.

We made several attempts to get a response from the head of the Bronx-based ambulance company.

We wanted to talk to him about worker fatigue and the hours that they're working.

After our initial report, we received numerous e-mails from EMT's about long hours and low-pay. One wrote, "We are poorly paid and so it's not uncommon for us to work 6 or 7 twelve hour shifts a week." Another wrote that he's paid "around $10-$11 dollars an hour" At one point, he says he held five jobs "just to make one decent paycheck."

"Our review of Department of Health regulations shows there is nothing stopping a driver from working a double shift. That was very unsettling," Weis said.

Besides no restrictions on work hours, ambulance drivers need only a New York driver's license to get behind the wheel.

"Would you get into an ambulance if you knew an 18 year old kid was driving? I wouldn't and I don't think anyone in this country would," Jay Doyle, Hickey's brother, said.

There's an on-going investigation by Westchester County Police and the District Attorney. Part of that investigation focused on is whether the EMT's failed to properly lock-in the patient or whether there was a mechanical failure that would have prevented the stretcher from flying out of the ambulance.

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