Random Carry Question - Accident / Hospital

[Sparsky]

Due to recent events I was curious if a person was carrying a firearm and was involved in a car accident where they were knocked unconscious or even coherent and had to / wanted to be transported to the hospital by ambulance what would be the protocol.
If you were coherent but your car is totaled, declare it to the officer and let him take it? If you were unconscious would the ambulance crew find it or if the ER crew found it?
How would you get your firearm back?

 

[jimbo]

Due to recent events I was curious if a person was carrying a firearm and was involved in a car accident where they were knocked unconscious or even coherent and had to / wanted to be transported to the hospital by ambulance what would be the protocol.
If you were coherent but your car is totaled, declare it to the officer and let him take it? If you were unconscious would the ambulance crew find it or if the ER crew found it?
How would you get your firearm back?

Good question. I have often thought about this same question. Maybe you will get a logical answer from one of our knowledgeable members.

 

[craigntx]

Hopefully they dont find it at the wrecking yard

 

[BBL]

The way I understand it, paramedics (EMTs) may not disarm you, unless your weapon poses a health hazard to you. A LEO is the one with the powers to disarm citizen.
So before you enter the hospital, you can request that the ambulance meet up with a LEO (often by the door to the hospital) where you are disarmed.

If you are unconscious, you cannot be held liable for being armed if EMTs wheel you in. Remember the important clause in Texas Penal Code about prohibited places (§46.03):
"A person commits an offense if the person intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly possesses or goes with a firearm, location-restricted knife, club, or prohibited weapon ..."

Now as far as what the LEO does with your weapons after you are disarmed and wheeled in, I have no idea. I will wait for our more experienced folks to chime in.

 

[jjkukla]

I personally know of a situation here in southern Brazoria county where local PD took temporary possession of a firearm then released it back to the owner's spouse.

Circumstances and dept. policies probably have a big impact on how this goes down.

YMMV.

 

[Lonesome Dove]

I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[ronr68]

I personally know of a situation here in southern Brazoria county where local PD took temporary possession of a firearm then released it back to the owner's spouse.

Circumstances and dept. policies probably have a big impact on how this goes down.

YMMV.

Pretty much what happened to me when I got hit on Loop 360 and totaled my 66 Mustang. I waved an APD officer down and told him I was carrying a pistol. He looked at the blood running down my face and told me not to worry. He would be there when EMT pulled me out the car. My wife was there by the time they got me out of the car, so he pulled the gun from my holster, unloaded it and put it in the trunk of my wife’s car. He really handled the situation very nicely.

 

[robertc1024]

Man I'm reaching back - there was one guy on here who was driving a motorcycle and got hit. I don't remember the details, but he told the police he was carrying legally, and they took care of his firearm. That had to be ~10 years ago.

 

[kenboyles72]

I'm kinda looking for the same answer. Ok, my son was in a wreck last night in Bossier City, LA, guy hit him in the side and totaled the car. His pistol is in the glove box, car got towed. Since he was not in fault and wasn't ticketed, will the local PD/SO search his car and take possession of the pistol or will the tow service search the car and make note of the contents and report it to LEO?

 

[ZX9RCAM]

I'm kinda looking for the same answer. Ok, my son was in a wreck last night in Bossier City, LA, guy hit him in the side and totaled the car. His pistol is in the glove box, car got towed. Since he was not in fault and wasn't ticketed, will the local PD/SO search his car and take possession of the pistol or will the tow service search the car and make note of the contents and report it to LEO?

Can't answer the question, but I hope he's okay.

 

[Havok1]

in my area, it’s unlikely that anyone will be looking for a gun unless the victim mentions it, and the only other way it will be found is if it’s just laying out in the open or there is another reason to be digging through the vehicle.

 

[leVieux]

As a former E M Doc; we didn’t want ‘’untrained’’ personnel handling weapons. If we found a carry gun, we’d usually take it off in holster & get our ‘’Security’’ to unload & store it.

I recall several times of having to tell Techs & Nurses to just ‘’leave the gun alone’’. Generally, the Patient carrying isn’t a danger, themselves.

But geniuses wanting to manipulate a strange gun can be dangerous.

p.s. We had actual shootings occur IN our ED’s at CHNO New Orleans and at Memorial in Corpus Christi. I heard of three shooting incidents happening in the ED @ N.O. and one in Corpus.

 

[Axxe55]

Due to recent events I was curious if a person was carrying a firearm and was involved in a car accident where they were knocked unconscious or even coherent and had to / wanted to be transported to the hospital by ambulance what would be the protocol.
If you were coherent but your car is totaled, declare it to the officer and let him take it? If you were unconscious would the ambulance crew find it or if the ER crew found it?
How would you get your firearm back?

personally i'd have a responsible family member or friend to take possession of the firearm

 

[Southpaw]

Man I'm reaching back - there was one guy on here who was driving a motorcycle and got hit. I don't remember the details, but he told the police he was carrying legally, and they took care of his firearm. That had to be ~10 years ago.

BigPapi? That's the first one I recalled after reading the OP. I can't remember the exact details, but I remember him saying it was a positive outcome.

 

[andre3k]

Previously, I would take possession of it temporarily to get it to a family member with the owners permission. If not, it goes to our property room and gets picked up from there by the owner.

Sent from my SM-S918U using Tapatalk

 

[toddnjoyce]

I'm kinda looking for the same answer. Ok, my son was in a wreck last night in Bossier City, LA, guy hit him in the side and totaled the car. His pistol is in the glove box, car got towed. Since he was not in fault and wasn't ticketed, will the local PD/SO search his car and take possession of the pistol or will the tow service search the car and make note of the contents and report it to LEO?

The tow company likely isn’t authorized to inventory the car. If there’s no probable cause for a search of the vehicle, LE probably ain’t going on a fishing expedition.

Policy holder/authorized individual needs to find out where the car was towed to and recover personal items from the car. If the firearm is missing, add it to the claim and file the police report.

 

[lonestardiver]

The tow company likely isn’t authorized to inventory the car. If there’s no probable cause for a search of the vehicle, LE probably ain’t going on a fishing expedition.

Policy holder/authorized individual needs to find out where the car was towed to and recover personal items from the car. If the firearm is missing, add it to the claim and file the police report.

Based on some of the small local towing companies in my rural area, I would not put it past them to do a brief look through of the vehicle and pilfer things. One towing company in particular seems to be staffed by those of a shady past.

 

[majormadmax]

My son works for a repossession company as a locksmith. The property people are the ones that clear out the vehicles of any personal items after they are recovered, and they will call the police when they find drugs or firearms.

However, the "owners" of the vehicle (they ones that didn't make payments on it) have every right to recover any property in it before it goes to auction.

In the case of an accident, a LEO will secure any firearm they discover on a victim or at the accident site; but as Todd mentioned they won't search the vehicle unless there is probable cause to do so.

If the vehicle is towed to a lot, I would recommend recovering any weapons as quickly as possible!

 

[General Zod]

Based on some of the small local towing companies in my rural area, I would not put it past them to do a brief look through of the vehicle and pilfer things. One towing company in particular seems to be staffed by those of a shady past.

Yeah, but the questions here are about legal behaviors, not what the crooks at some towing companies will do.

On a related note, make sure you never get towed in Ellis County. Those assholes were ready to sell my car within 3 days, while I was in contact with them about getting it back. But they didn't break into it and go through my stuff.

 

[Sasquatch]

As a hospital security monkey I'll throw my experience in there:

We took possession of weapons (temporarily) a few times a week from patients who came in with a firearm on them. Usually accident victims.

You aren't catching a charge. If you're brought in to our trauma bay, your clothing will be cut off and all of your personal items will be bagged up. If you have valuables - ie jewelry, firearms, wallet, watch etc it typically gets sealed in a property bag and turned in to security. We had a safe specifically for firearms taken from patients.

When you are released, you stop by the security office to collect your possessions, including the firearm we took control of. We're not calling LE to be an intermediary, we're not calling an FFL to be an intermediary - it came in on your person, its assumed that its your gun and its released back to you. You'll get it back in a cleared condition, the magazine and chambered round (assuming an auto) will be seperate. Revolver, you're getting the gun back with the cylinder open and the rounds seperate. We'll escort you out if you like (more to keep other patients / visitors from losing their shit, than we're afraid of you)

It was very rare for an EMS crew to be the one turning a firearm over to us - it happened sometimes because of how a person carried got in the way of them working on the patient. Most of the time the guns were found when the patient arrived in the trauma bay and their clothing was removed. If a firearm was discovered prior to the patient being transported, it often got held by whatever LE agency was on scene for safe keeping.

A patient coming in on an ambulance is a very different scenario than someone just walking thru the doors with a firearm on them. If we SEE a firearm on a patient / visitor etc - we'd be going to stop them and ID'ing them as a law enforcement officer, or asking them to remove the gun from the facility. The only people legally allowed to bring a firearm into a hospital are law enforcement, or on-duty security employed by the facility. That said, I'm sure that at any given point, at least one or two people sitting in the ER waiting room are armed and concealing a firearm. Its not a problem until it becomes a problem.