Stretcher stolen outside Alfie's

While responding to a call at Alfie’s, paramedics reported that their ambulance gurney was stolen.

Kingston Police Staff Sergeant Alex Forsyth said the theft occurred at 12:38 a.m. on Sunday morning.

“Paramedics were inside dealing with an intoxicated patient when they returned to their ambulance and saw the stretcher was gone,” he said.

Operations Supervisor for the Frontenac Paramedic Services Ingmar Freitag said the gurney cost about $6,000.

“The reason they’re expensive is it’s an engineered piece of equipment. They need to go through crash tests,” he said.

Paramedics had left the gurney at the top of the stairs in front of the club’s entrance.

“We try to get the stretcher as close as possible to the patient,” Freitag said. “In this case the closest point we could leave the stretcher was at the top of the stairs, so that’s where they left it.”

Due to the theft, additional resources were required at Alfie’s which meant that a second ambulance was tied up, Freitag said.

“Potentially lives could have been lost," he said. “I’ve been a paramedic for 13 years and in management for two, and this is the first time I’ve heard of anything being stolen from us before."

Deputy Chief of Operations at Frontenac Paramedic Services Dave Gemmill said the stretcher was recovered at 11:30 a.m. on Monday.

"I can't give the location," he said, adding that as far as he knows, no one has been charged with the theft. "The search has cost nothing for us but there is an additional cost in resources in police."

—With files from Katherine Fernandez-Blance and Catherine Owsik