A Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department unit is parked at the scene of a traffic crash on Hogan Road. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on July 14, 2026 at 2:56 pm
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A city rescue unit needed rescuing itself late Saturday when someone stole the high-tech ambulance from a fire station in Jacksonville’s Brentwood community and hightailed it up North Main Street, police said
But Rescue 15, a big red Chevrolet-based ambulance, is hard to hide. Police pulled it over 5 miles away. The driver is behind bars on multiple charges, police said.
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The Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department did not respond to questions from Jacksonville Today requesting more details about how someone could steal a rescue unit or what security measures are in place to prevent that.
Amaree Markell Wiggins, 28, was arrested at 10:30 p.m. on charges of theft of a motor vehicle valued at over $100,000 and burglary, according to jail records. With bail set at $50,000, his arraignment is set for Aug. 3, jail records show.
His arrest report states that a firefighter standing in Fire Station 9 at 4560 N. Main St. spotted a skinny man in a T-shirt and shorts walk up just after 7 p.m. The firefighter thought the man was there to ask for help. The fire station is across Main Street from Evergreen Cemetery.
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The next few lines of the report are redacted, but it appears this is when the man got inside, turned on the vehicle and drove it out of the fire station.
A fire engineer working inside on his computer noted the departure, the report said. A fire lieutenant told officers he came outside after the suspect had left the station with the ambulance.
“He saw the ambulance heading southbound on Main Street with his crew members following behind,” the report says. “The crew members lost sight of the ambulance after a few minutes.”
Police issued an alert on the stolen vehicle, a heavy-duty, 2017 Chevrolet truck with specialized medical equipment on board. Other officers spotted it heading north on Interstate 95 near Dunn Avenue with one person inside, the report says.
The vehicle exited at Dunn Avenue, then headed east on Busch Drive, where police stopped it at the Anheuser-Busch plant and took the driver into custody, the report said.
One saw him plead guilty
Wiggins has two past arrests for auto theft. On Dec. 15, 2023, he was arrested for grand theft auto and received a 13-month state prison sentence on March 26, 2024, records show. He was released from prison Dec. 18, 2024, after serving an eight-month sentence, Department of Corrections records show.
Just over a year ago, he pleaded guilty in another case and was sentenced July 9, 2025, to a year in the Duval County jail, records show. He was released from jail March 23 after serving eight months of his sentence, jail records show.
This is not the first time that a city rescue unit has been stolen.
According to Jacksonville Today news partner News4Jax, a rescue unit was stolen just after 2:30 a.m. July 4, 2014, from St. Vincent’s Hospital in Riverside when paramedics were inside with a patient. It was found abandoned a few blocks away from the hospital.
About the same time, a 54-year-old man who had just been driven to Baptist South in one rescue unit later walked out and drove another one away, since it was parked with the engine running, police said. The man drove about 4 miles to his home in Mandarin, but police tracked him with the built-in GPS tracker in the rescue unit.
Fire department officials said they did not know why two of their ambulances had been taken on joy rides. But they said the department was working on ways to keep any more vehicles from being stolen, including locking them and giving a spare key to someone on duty.
