Fresno firefighters rescue woman impaled on wrought iron fence

A Fresno woman’s leg was impaled on a wrought iron fence after she fled an ambulance near Divisadero and Diamond streets, turning a routine medical aid call into a technical rescue in central Fresno.

The call came just after noon Thursday, May 21, when EMS crews responded to the area in central Fresno. Authorities said the woman became combative inside the ambulance, and crews pulled over and let her out. She then ran from the scene and tried to jump over the fence, catching her leg on the iron spikes.

The Fresno Fire Department responded and freed her from the fence using specialized extraction techniques. She was then taken to a hospital for treatment. Her condition was not known.

The incident underscored how quickly a medical transport can become a high-risk emergency for both patients and responders. What began as an ambulance call instead required firefighters to manage a pinned patient, work carefully around sharp metal and coordinate a rescue in the middle of Fresno’s urban streets.

It also highlighted the strain on emergency crews when behavioral-health or medical crises turn unpredictable. EMS workers are often the first to encounter patients in distress, but once a transport becomes volatile, fire rescue teams can be pulled in to handle the kind of technical extrication that ordinary medical personnel cannot safely perform. In this case, that meant bringing the Fresno Fire Department to the scene to cut through an emergency that escalated in seconds.