Life-saving equipment stolen from ambulance in Shrewsbury
A CCTV image has been released of a man police would like to speak to after life-saving equipment was stolen from an ambulance.
The theft happened while a West Midlands Ambulance Service crew was treating a patient in a property in Dogpole, Shrewsbury, on 15 July. Equipment used to manage patients' airways was taken, the service said. It left the ambulance off the road with crews unable to respond to 999 calls until they collected a new vehicle. Officers want to speak to the man in the image, taken from the vehicle's CCTV, in connection with their inquiries. The ambulance service said the crew became aware of the break-in just before 03:00 BST, while the patient was being treated. The patient was taken to hospital and once they handed over to staff in A&E they found equipment, including endo-tracheal blades and laryngoscope handles, had been taken. Jon Ostrowski, the ambulance service's Shrewsbury operations manager, said: "They are utterly useless to anyone but us as they are only used in life-saving interventions. "While the crew carry this equipment in their pack that they take to a patient, had they used that one and then needed another, it could have caused a significant delay and that could have had deadly consequences." Anyone with information should contact West Mercia Police. Follow BBC West Midlands on Facebook, on Twitter, and sign up for local news updates direct to your phone.