FDNY ambulance collisions skyrocket

Some of the city’s own rescuers are dialing 911.

Ambulances operated by the FDNY were involved in 384 collisions in the first four months of fiscal year 2017 — which runs between July 1 and Oct. 31, 2016 — an increase of 16 percent from the same period a year earlier, according to the latest statistics.

The spike is only a small part of a larger, more disturbing trend.

There were 730 such accidents over the 12 months of fiscal 2014 — but two years later there were 1,056, a 44 percent increase.

City Councilwoman Elizabeth Crowley (D-Queens) blamed the jump on the extra runs by FDNY ambulance crews, who took over routes from private operators that went belly up.

“Not only are we putting out additional tours, but we’re taking over private tours,” said Crowley, who heads of the council’s Committee on Fire & Criminal Justice Services. “The level of training and the care that they take in the ambulances haven’t changed.”

The FDNY picked up 48 new ambulance routes in 2015 and 2016 alone after private ambulance operators such as Transcare, Long Island College and Westchester Square went out of business.

The total runs each year keep climbing. There were 1.53 million in 2014, 1.67 million in 2015 and 1.7 million last year.

But accidents have increased at a much quicker rate.

The FDNY said the added runs are only one reason the accident figures are so high.

Starting in 2015, the department began including “incidents,” which refer to minor accidents such as backing into a fence, with more serious collisions, an FDNY official said.

How many collisions qualify as incidents in the current statistics is unclear, though.

“We have more ambulances responding to an ever-increasing number of medical emergencies throughout the city, and that carries the risk of additional incidents and collisions — the vast majority of which are minor,” said FDNY spokesman Frank Gribbon.

Fire Department workplace injuries are also up 11 percent over the first four months of the 2017 fiscal year, according to the Preliminary Mayor’s Management Report.

The injuries increased from 2,869 in 2015 to 3,188 in 2016 during the four-month stretch.

Since 2014, such injuries have climbed steadily, from 7,655 for the year to 7,850 in 2015 to 8,113 in 2016.