[Kentucky EMS Connection]

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Kentucky EMS Memorial | The Kentucky EMS Connection Main Index

Published June 24, 1991 in the Lexington Herald-Leader

Ambulance employee sleeping in back of vehicle dies in collision

By ERIC GREGORY
Herald-Leader Staff Writer

A Knott County man sleeping in the back of an ambulance was killed Saturday morning when the vehicle struck a coal truck on the Mountain Parkway in Clark County.

Monroe Watkins, 25, an employee of the Mountain Ambulance Service in Campton, died of severe head injuries in the 4 a.m. wreck 12 miles east of Winchester.

Sgt. Jerry Burkhart of the Clark County Sheriff's Department said Corbett Smith Jr. was hauling coal west on the parkway when he missed his exit at Clay City because of thick fog.

Just after the 8 mile marker, Smith made a U-turn through a crossover that is supposed to be used only for emergency vehicles, Burkhart said. He told police that he did not see anything coming through the fog.

As Smith pulled out onto the eastbound lane, the ambulance crashed into the side of his trailer.

Burkhart said the ambulance was returning from the University of Kentucky Hospital where it had left a patient from the Prestonsburg area.

Watkins had decided to get some sleep, Burkhart said, and laid down on the crew bench that is used to hold extra stretchers when ambulances carry more than one victim.

The impact threw him into a partition that divides the ambulance.

The driver of the ambulance, Benjamin H. Nickell, 29, of Campton, was trapped in the vehicle for more than an hour and had to be cut out with two jaws of life. He was taken to the University of Kentucky Hospital, where he was in satisfactory condition last night.

Smith, 23, of Talcum in Knott County, was not injured. He is an employee of Bearville Trucking Company in Knott County.

He has been charged with improper turning and not having his driver's license with him.

Funeral services for Watkins, the husband of Sandy Watkins, will be 2 p.m. Tuesday at Shackelford Funeral Home in Campton. Visitation will be anytime today.

 

[Kentucky EMS Connection] Copyright © 1991 Lexington Herald-Leader.