Chennai: Man forgets Audi in parking, takes ambulance to go home

In a bizarre case, a man who arrived at a city hospital in his high-end car, left it there and drove home in an ambulance.

Police suspect that he might have mistook the ambulance for his Audi under the influence of alcohol.

Narrating the strange sequence of events, the police said a businessman, who is in his thirties, visited the hospital in Thousand Lights area early yesterday to drop his friend who had sustained some injuries.

After leaving him, he drove back in a Maruti Omni ambulance.

The driver of the ambulance had left the keys in the vehicle, the police said.

The businessman realised his mistake only after reaching home in suburban Palavakkam, about 15 km away when members of his family questioned him about his car, they said.

The man immediately asked his driver to take the ambulance back.

Meanwhile, hospital personnel found that an ambulance was missing and alerted the police.

A local patrol team arrived at the hospital and more or less at the same time the businessman's driver drove in with the missing ambulance.

The driver apologised to the hospital authorities and police on his owner's behalf and explained that the incident was a case of "mistaken identity."

When hospital personnel found that a rear-view mirror of the ambulance was damaged, the driver agreed to compensate them for it.

He then drove away in the Audi.

The hospital was not sure if the businessman was drunk and decided not to lodge a police complaint.