ALMA — At about 6:56 p.m. Monday, Gratiot County dispatch radio carried a call about a possible stolen ambulance at Michigan One Community Credit Union on North Alger Road. Within minutes, according to the same radio traffic, the call was corrected: the ambulance, an MMR unit, had been sideswiped, not taken.
That is the whole of what is known tonight. The audio does not say whether the ambulance was on a call, whether anyone was aboard or hurt, what struck it, or whether it stayed in service.
We are noting it because the first version of the call, a stolen ambulance, is the kind of thing that travels fast on social media and scanner apps, and the correction usually does not travel with it. The corrected version is the one the dispatch traffic settled on.
What the audio does not establish: whether the ambulance was responding to a call; whether a patient or crew were aboard; whether anyone was injured; what vehicle struck it and whether that driver stopped; whether the unit was taken out of service; and why the call was first described as a theft.
This report rests on publicly broadcast dispatch radio traffic, as summarized by a scanner-monitoring service, and nothing else. Scanner audio is real-time and often wrong on first pass; this call is an example. Gratiot County Central Dispatch keeps event reports for ten years but does not post them online. Neither MMR, Alma Police nor Central Dispatch has been reached for comment; any of them is welcome to respond at contactus@gcwhistleblower.com, and the response will be published.