Firefighters in San Francisco blamed two Cruise robotaxis for blocking an ambulance carrying a patient who later died

Two Cruise robotaxis blocked an ambulance in San Francisco carrying a critically injured patient who died 20-30 minutes after arriving at the hospital. The company denied the rescuers' version of events.

Here's What We Know

The incident occurred on August 14, 2023. According to the fire department's report, at 10:50 p.m., emergency personnel were treating a pedestrian struck by a car at an intersection. The victim suffered significant head trauma and was gasping for breath, and his peripheral pulse was absent.

Paramedics loaded the patient into the ambulance, which was unable to leave the scene due to two Cruise robotaxis blocking the two right lanes of traffic. The report says San Francisco police officers tried unsuccessfully to manually move the vehicles.

Firefighters then asked a police officer to move his vehicle, which was also parked in the lane of traffic. However, this further delayed patient care, the report said.

Cruise provided Forbes with video footage that refutes the firefighters' version of the incident. It shows that one Cruise vehicle quickly left the scene, while the other remained parked at the intersection with an open lane on the right side of the road that traffic was travelling in.

Forbes noted that it's not clear from the video whether the ambulance could have pulled into the open lane.

Cruise spokeswoman Hannah Lindow said the Cruise vehicle stopped to give way to emergency personnel.

“Throughout the entire duration the (autonomous vehicle) is stopped, traffic remains unblocked and flowing to the right of the AV. The ambulance behind the AV had a clear path to pass the AV as other vehicles, including another ambulance, proceeded to do,” Lindow said in an email.

Lindow added that once the victim was loaded into the ambulance, the ambulance immediately left the scene and the robotaxi did not obstruct the passage.

Moreover, the emergency was caused by a vehicle driven by a human, a Cruise spokeswoman said.

Source: The San Francisco Chronicle