Instead, paramedics continued to place patients on old-fashioned stretchers and lift them into the ambulance, despite the risk of shoulder. neck and back injuries and the remote possibility of dropping an overweight patient.

Meanwhile, many private ambulance companies in the suburbs made the switch to electric cots that eliminate the need for heavy lifting and speed the process of loading patients into the ambulance.

Police Chief William Quigley said Cohasset’s Engine 3 was leaving Sunrise Assisted Living on Route 3A around noon after responding to a medical aid call. The truck was turning left onto Route 3A, and a car stopped to let it through.

Quigley said the woman, who was driving behind the stopped car, swerved around it and then ran into the back of the engine. There were no injuries, but the front and driver’s side of the Lexus sustained heavy damage.

“It actually peeled the skin of the door off and ripped the tire off,” Quigley said.

The driver of the dump truck told investigators he heard the fire engine's sirens but wasn't sure where it was coming from. 

Officers with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department say the dump truck was stolen, the driver had a suspended license and an outstanding warrant for driving while suspended.

Spencer Manufacturing in South Haven made the truck at a cost of approximately $400,000 — $50,000 of which was funded by a grant from the U.S Department of Agriculture and $270,000 of which came from a low interest loan from the USDA. The village paid the remainder of the cost, in part through the sale of an older fire department vehicle.