A drunken thug who was caught on CCTV vandalising an ambulance while paramedics treated a terrified patient inside has avoided jail.
Daniel Drennan-Kane, 21, could be seen punching out at a wing mirror and kicking the side of the emergency vehicle in shocking footage released by ambulance bosses.
A court heard the mindless yob also threw mud at the side of the van after paramedics responded to an incident in Woodside,Telford, Shrops., in the early hours of April 30.
On Monday (22/5) he admitted causing criminal damage at Telford Magistrates Court but avoided a spell behind bars.
He was handed a 12 month community order, ordered to carry out 60 hours unpaid work and pay £100 compensation to the ambulance service.
Drennan-Kane, of Telford, was also ordered to carry out an alcohol treatment and rehabilitation requirement.
Roger Bleazard, prosecuting, said West Midlands Ambulance Service had been called to a report of a man who had taken a suspected overdose.
He said paramedics had been with the patient inside the ambulance when Kane came out of a nearby house and appeared drunk.
Mr Bleazard said: “For no good reason he attacks the ambulance, smashing the nearside wing mirror off, denting the panels and throwing mud at it before police attend and arrest him.”
He said the ambulance was out of action for a couple of days while the wing mirror was replaced.
Kane told a probation officer he drank a litre of vodka prior to the incident and had no recollection of the events.
At the time West Mercia Police said a “random stranger” had struck, which resulted in the vehicle being taken off the road.
Joy Hughes was working with a trainee technician and treating a patient at the time of the “unprovoked attack”.
She tweeted: “Working with Zoe tonight, trainee technician.
“Rather surprised when treating a patient in the back of the ambulance a random stranger began to attack the vehicle! Police requested, we got away safely but damage means that vehicle now off road. All people okay, thank goodness.”
In a statement, the ambulance service said crews were “sadly familiar with this sort of behaviour” and added it “must have been terrifying” for the patient.
A West Midlands Ambulance Service spokesman said: “How can it possibly be appropriate for anyone who has nothing to do with the case the ambulance crew are dealing with to suddenly start attacking the vehicle?
“Sadly, many of our crews are familiar with this sort of behaviour, but when you are a patient, this must have been terrifying. Any such actions are abhorrent.”
West Midlands Ambulance Service – which features on the hit BBC One programme ‘Ambulance’ – is no stranger to abuse as they go about their work.
In February, jobless Kirsty Sharman, 26, of Stoke-on-Trent, was charged with a public order offence after she left a note on an ambulance ordering the driver to move their van.
She wrote “If this van is for anyone but Number 14 then you have no right to be parked here.
“I couldn’t give a s*** if the whole street collapsed. Now move your van from outside my house.”
Two months prior to that, teaching assistant Hassan Shabbir Ali, 27, also placed a note on a windscreen telling paramedics not to “block my driveway” in Birmingham.
Written in capital letters, it read: “You may be saving lives, but don’t park your van in a stupid place and block my drive.”
The dad-of-one later apologised and said he had written the note in the “heat of the moment.”
