Albuquerque hospital patient steals ambulance, returns after crashing it
Albuquerque, NM April 16 2019
A patient left the University of New Mexico Hospital Friday afternoon by stealing an ambulance only to be readmitted soon after with back pain once she crashed into a light pole and got stuck on an embankment, according to campus police.
Ashley Ulibarri, 25, faces a charge of unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, and she was booked into the Metropolitan Detention Center later the same day.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Metropolitan Court, Ulibarri was discharged from the hospital around 4 p.m. and walked toward a parked ambulance that had its doors open. She tried to get into the ambulance, but security chased her off.
The UNM Police Department said she then “circled around,” got into another ambulance and backed out of the parking lot. Ulibarri drove west on Lomas NE and hit a light pole, then another vehicle, and then got stuck on the embankment beside Interstate 25.
According to the court document, when officers arrived, Ulibarri had jumped into a gurney in the back of the ambulance and was pretending to be a patient. Police say she was “shaken up and didn’t talk very much.”
Ulibarri later told police she had just been kicked out of UNMH when she saw the ambulance, which was “running, unlocked and nobody was around it.”
“She wanted to get heroin so she took the ambulance to find some,” an officer wrote.
Ulibarri then told police she hurt her back in the crash and was taken back to the hospital.
