Buffalo woman who stole Utica ambulance, plunged it into Irondequoit Bay sentenced
A Buffalo woman was sentenced Monday in Oneida County Court on charges related to the theft of an ambulance in Utica in June 2021, a long-distance, high-speed chase ending when the ambulance crashed into Irondequoit Bay in Monroe County.
Vanessa Armstead, who was 32 at the time of the incident, was sentenced to three-to-nine years in prison. She had pleaded guilty in August to a charge of second-degree grand larceny.
Armstead had been in an unrelated motor vehicle accident on the New York State Thruway on Saturday, June 12 last year and was treated for injuries at the St. Elizabeth Campus of the Mohawk Valley Health System in Utica. Sometime after her release, she went to Union Station and then, on Sunday morning, to Catherine Street.
That’s where she took the 2017 Ford Transit Connect Ambulance from the ambulance bay in the downtown Kunkel Ambulance station at about 10:30 a.m.
Kunkel and law enforcement worked together to track the ambulance with GPS and a trooper spotted and pursued it on the New York State Thruway. Armstead made her way to Route 590 north and then turned east on Seneca Road in Irondequoit, about half a mile from the bay.
2021:Stolen Utica ambulance submerged in Irondequoit Bay after chase
More: What challenges do NY's gun laws present for local hunters?
The ambulance sped down Seneca Road, crashed through a locked gate where the road dead ends and plunged down a boat ramp about 12:30 p.m., bystanders said. The splashing crash interrupted a sunny afternoon at the Newport Yacht Club for dozens of boaters and families.
Armstead climbed out a window and was rescued by a boater. She was then taken into custody by police in a phalanx of cars that followed her to the boat ramp.
Amy Neff Roth covers issues that affect families for the Observer-Dispatch. Email her at aroth@uticaod.com.
This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Buffalo woman sentenced after crashing stolen Utica ambulance into bay
