Staff report

WARREN — A Youngstown man has pleaded not guilty to stealing an ambulance from St. Joseph Warren Hospital, leading to a police chase that ended with his arrest on the Center Street Bridge in Youngstown.

Nathan Queener, 40, of Orrin Avenue, faces a fourth-degree felony charge of motor vehicle theft. During his arraignment earlier this week before Warren Municipal Court Judge Patty Knepp, he entered a not guilty plea and was given a $10,000 bond. His next court appearance is set Monday, court records show.

According to a Warren police report, the theft occurred around 3 a.m. Monday when the man, a recently discharged patient, took a Ford ambulance belonging to Physician Ambulance from the hospital’s ambulance bay.

Surveillance video captured the man walking out of the hospital’s main entrance with a blanket, heading to the bay and driving off in the vehicle.

Hospital employees alerted police after discovering the ambulance missing when they returned from transporting a patient. An employee tracked the vehicle’s location, showing it moving toward Youngstown on Interstate 680, the police report states.

Warren police coordinated with Youngstown and Struthers police departments, who located the ambulance, which stopped briefly at a residence on Pointview Avenue in Youngstown before it moved again.

Youngstown police stopped the ambulance on the Center Street Bridge around 3:30 a.m., where they identified Queener as the driver and took him into custody. The ambulance was recovered undamaged with no items reported missing.

Officers transported Queener to the Trumbull County jail, but jail staff refused to accept him after police say Queener admitted to getting high in Youngstown following the theft. He was then taken back to St. Joseph’s for medical evaluation.