Father following emergency vehicle said he saw son jump, hit head on pavement
A New Orleans man died after he came out of the back of a moving ambulance and slammed into the pavement on Interstate 59 near Ellisville around noon on Saturday.
Kevin Preau, 42, was pronounced dead at South Central Regional Medical Center, according to Coroner Burl Hall’s report. The deceased’s father Paul Preau was following behind the EMServ Ambulance, which was on its way to Forrest General Hospital in Hattiesburg when it happened in the southbound lane near Exit 85, which is at Highway 590.
“He jumped out,” the elder Preau said. “They had just pulled out, about 100 feet, when the doors fly open ... After that, it was instant. His head was split open and blood was all over the place.”
The ambulance pulled over immediately and the medics and father ran to him, but it was too late, Paul Preau said.
“I don’t look at it as witnessing his death,” he said. “It was witnessing him entering into a new world — a peaceful world.”
In the aftermath of his son’s untimely death, Paul Preau said he has received an outpouring of messages from people whose lives he had touched. He worked for New Orleans-based Jambalaya Girl, a company founded by his sister Kristen using recipes created by their father.
“I heard from so many people; he helped so many during his life,” he said.
And then his son helped more strangers after his death.
“I was asked about donating his organs, and I said, ‘Absolutely,’ ... then I came to find out that he had already checked the box on his driver’s license to be an organ donor,” Preau said, his voice cracking with emotion. “He’s still helping people. That’s the beautiful thing.”
Preau wants his son’s death to help with policies and procedures in regard to encounters between law enforcement officials and mental-health patients. He was quick to point out that he wasn’t blaming the officer who responded or the two women who were in the ambulance.
He had called for assistance because his son was in “a high-anxiety mental situation that was going through the roof ... in a rage,” he said. The call came in as a report of a man who was “suicidal and depressed” and had kicked out the back glass of his father’s van, a source with knowledge of the incident said.
Preau had his son calmed down on the side of the interstate when help arrived. The medics said they were “afraid he would jump out of the ambulance,” he said, so Paul Preau suggested taking his son in the police cruiser, “but he said he couldn’t do that.”
But his son became agreeable, walked to the ambulance and said he was willing to get help, his father said. The officer told him it “wasn’t his jurisdiction,” indicating it must have been an Ellisville police officer, but Preau wasn’t certain.
“I’m just frustrated,” Preau said. “How was he able to get out? Why couldn’t somebody do something? He was in a calm state asking for help, so I’m disappointed.
“This has to be addressed so it doesn’t happen again. I’m not mad at anyone. I’m upset with the system.”
Some people who claimed to have witnessed the incident posted on Facebook that the man was strapped on a stretcher when he came out.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol is investigating the incident, and no official report has been released yet. A spokesman for MHP said that initial unofficial reports indicate that the man “became uncooperative and jumped out of a moving ambulance.”
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