SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Fire Department is investigating exactly how a woman was able to drive off in one of its ambulances Wednesday, taking two staff members and a patient along with her on a 22-mile-long ride.
Alecsis Skie Roberts, 30, was arrested by San Antonio police Wednesday after they boxed in the stolen ambulance near Highway 90 and Southwest Military.
Police say Roberts had jumped into the driver’s seat as EMT workers tended to a 65-year-old patient in the back of the ambulance. They say along the way, the three had tried to persuade Roberts to stop, but she ignored them.
In an email Thursday morning, a fire department spokesman said the employees and patient were all unhurt but shaken.
Roberts is in jail facing numerous charges, including kidnapping.
The email also mentioned that all SAFD ambulances are equipped with anti-theft devices, and that an investigation is underway to determine if Roberts somehow was able to disable it or break it.
“I thought it was just, that was the craziest thing I ever heard,” Victor Young said Thursday morning, reflecting on the incident.
Young saw the tail-end of Roberts’ arrest as he worked nearby at Kel-Lac Uniforms.
“We see an ambulance with a bunch of cops running up,” he said. “It was about, I want to say about 10 to 15 police.”
Young said this was a first for him, seeing an ambulance stolen with workers and patients still inside it.
Stolen ambulances, though, are not exactly unheard of in San Antonio.
Phillip Perez, 38, was sentenced to 18 years in prison earlier this year in connection with the theft of an ambulance back in 2023.
He was arrested by Kerr County sheriff’s deputies after driving the stolen ambulance from San Antonio to Boerne.
KSAT 12 News reported on another stolen ambulance in 2020.
In that case, Ashley Moreno, now 36, was accused of driving off in an ambulance from Methodist Metropolitan Hospital, then abandoning it several miles away.
Six months prior to that, Monica Ray Silva was arrested after allegedly stealing an ambulance and causing a crash that left several people injured.
“Thank God everything, everybody was OK, mainly the patient,” Young said of the latest case. “He was the victim stuck in the middle of everything.”
SAFD reported that after Wednesday’s incident, the patient in the stolen ambulance was transferred to a different ambulance, then taken to a hospital.
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