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CANTON, N.C. (WLOS) — Mission Hospital’s air ambulance made an emergency landing between Pisgah High School and Canton Middle School after the patient on board became combative Tuesday.
They said first responders finally subdued him.
“The guy that got out, he like stumbled over towards the gate and he was like falling on the ground and stuff, and then he took off running down towards the river, and all of them chased him down,” Courtney Stacy, a sophomore at Pisgah High School, said.
“Yeah, it was shocking,” Stacy said. “I thought he was drunk.”
Stacy was in a nearby playground after school.
“I was waiting for my mom to come get me.” Stacy said. “I always watch helicopters.”
But, then one landed nearby.
“I thought somebody at football practice got hurt,” Stacy said.
Haywood County Schools superintendent Dr. Bill Nolte said there was a reason the chopper landed in that area.
“We have four fairly regularly used landing locations for the school system,” Nolte said.
Teams were in the stadium next door.
“Yeah, there was a couple kids that ran up over here, but they just told everybody to back up,” Stacy said.
Witnesses said the crew members tried keeping the patient from harming himself or others in the area.
“Somebody said it was going to explode, but then I heard that there was a guy in it, and, I guess, he was trying to attack them or something like that. But, the fire department and the police and all them came. They arrested the guy at first, but then they put him in an ambulance,” Stacy said.
Stacy said the chopper took off after about half an hour—an end to an interesting afternoon.
“I’ve never seen nothing like that happen,” Stacy said.
The patient was out of the hospital and not charged by the time this article was posted.
Law enforcement would not release his name.
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