Beloved Karns City Regional Ambulance Service volunteer recovering from injuries in crash
Nancy Brice, a beloved figure in the Western Pennsylvania emergency services community, was injured in a vehicle crash Monday, Jan. 13, while she was serving with her full-time employer, Clarion Hospital EMS.
An update from her other employer, the Karns City Regional Ambulance Service, said that Brice is “doing much better” and that she will soon be transferred out of the intensive care unit at Allegheny General Hospital.
According to a report from Pennsylvania State Police, she was in a Ford F550 ambulance that was transporting two children, one of whom was in a stretcher.
The ambulance was traveling down State Route 228 in O’Hara Township, Allegheny County, when it failed to negotiate a curve and struck a guard rail. The vehicle continued for a while before coming to rest on the on-ramp, the report said.
The driver and two children were listed as uninjured in the crash report, but both children were taken to UPMC Children’s Hospital.
Meanwhile, Brice, who works in the back of the ambulance, was not secured with a seat belt or any safety equipment when the collision happened, and was taken to Allegheny General Hospital.
According to a Facebook post by Brice’s daughter-in-law, Buffy Hillwig Blair, Brice suffered fractures to ribs and her sternum in the crash, as well as a “pretty severe” compression fracture in her thoracic spine.
Mark Lauer, president of the Karns City Regional Ambulance Service, for whom Brice is also a volunteer and board member, said he visited Brice on Tuesday at AGH.
He said Brice was in “good spirits” despite her injuries, and that she was “doing OK.”
Lauer, who is also Brice’s cousin, spoke of Brice’s high reputation in the local medical community.
“She's a phenomenal lady, and a lot of people practicing medicine in Western Pennsylvania have probably been taught by Nancy in some way,” Lauer said. “She's been practicing since the late ’70s or early ’80s. She's a superwoman, and she's still going.”
Brice serves as a paramedic with both Clarion Hospital EMS and Karns City Regional Ambulance Service.
In late 2023, Brice was named a Hometown Hero by the Butler Eagle, part of a program honoring first responders across Butler County.
