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A police officer opening fire on a stolen ambulance speeding through the streets of a busy city is a scene you’ve probably encountered if you’ve played a Grand Theft Auto game. However, it transpired in real life in Chicago after a man sparked a wild chase in The Windy City.
The Grand Theft Auto franchise has garnered plenty of backlash over the decades thanks to critics who’ve floated largely unfounded accusations attempting to link video games to incidents of real-world violence.
It is far from the only franchise where players have the opportunity to wreak some havoc by controlling characters packing a wide array of weapons, but it’s particularly conducive to chaos thanks to the open-world approach that serves a a sandbox for over-the-top hijinks most people would never even entertain attempting in real life.
However, that was not the case with one man who was charged with 19 felonies after commandeering an ambulance from a hospital in Chicago before leading police on a chase.
A Chicago man was arrested after leading police on a pursuit in a stolen ambulance
First responders never know how their day is going to unfold when they begin their shift, and a couple of paramedics affiliated with the Cicero Fire Department in Illinois saw their day take a wild turn when they headed to Loretto Hospital in Chicago to drop off a patient last Friday.
According to NBC Chicago, one of those parademics was still inside their ambulance when someone who was being escorted from the hospital by security jumped into the driver’s seat and peeled away from the facility, which led to police fielding a 911 call from the partner who watched the vehicle speed off.
They managed to jump out of the ambulance a couple of blocks away, but the man who hijacked it continued to weave through the West Side while striking a number of vehicles that got in his way—including a couple of SUVs at a roadblock where an officer fired four shots in a failed attempt to bring the chase to an end.
It eventually concluded when the ambulance struck another police vehicle head-on, which led to the driver trying to flee before he was swarmed by the officers who detained him.
Stolen ambulance pursuit in Chicago from yesterday pic.twitter.com/vsQ6v6AHgb
— DJTru (@DJTru) November 8, 2025
The suspect in question is 59-year-old Lamont Hill, who has been charged with 19 felonies, including vehicular hijacking, kidnapping, aggravated battery, and criminal damage to government property.
Three police officers were among the seven people treated for injury in the wake of the case, and the Chicago Police Department says it is conducting an investigation connected to the officer who opened fire on the ambulance.