Teenage girl allegedly sexually assaulted while being transported in ambulance speaks out
A 16-year-old Temecula girl, on Friday March 25, was allegedly sexually assaulted by a 22-year-old employee with American Medical Response Riverside while in the back of ambulance.
The teenage victim, who CBSLA is not naming, said she took the bus to school, as she always does, but while in class, she was sent to the office.
"The teacher speculated something was wrong with me because I was trying to sleep," she told CBSLA.
From the office, she was transported by the first ambulance to Temecula Valley Hospital, but her stay there wasn't very long, because while she was getting her vitals taken, she explained that she was talking to a friend on the phone.
"I was joking around with my friend and I said I wanted to kill myself, as a joke, and then I was put on a hold."
With her legs and arms bound, the 16-year-old girl was rolled into a second ambulance, which drove her to a behavioral clinic in Torrance. As one EMT hopped in the driver's seat, the second, 22-year-old Jason Dean Anderson, started her paperwork in the back.
"I thought everything was fine until he asked me if I was sexually active. I said no. I said no and he kept pressing that, saying, 'Ever?' And I said, 'No, never.'"
Within minutes, she said Anderson began kissing her. Then she said he asked her to perform other sexual acts. She refused, but said he continued anyway.
"My mind was racing. I was like, 'When is this ride going to be over?'"
The teenage victim told CBSLA it was actually the other EMT who reported Anderson.
"I am so grateful because if it wasn't for him, I feel like I wouldn't have said anything because I wouldn't know who to talk to," she said.
Anderson's employer, AMR, released a statement that read in part:
"The employee in question was placed on administrative leave during the course of our internal investigation and has not worked since the day the alleged incident took place."
According to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department, Anderson was booked on two felony sexual battery charges. He has since bailed out, and what scares the 16-year-old Temecula girl the most is that she feels what happened to her has likely happened to others.
"At the end of the ride, he specifically told me that there were other women, and that he had a new girl every week in the back of the ambulance."
San Diego based attorney Dan Gilleon is representing the teenager girl, and encouraged anyone with any information about additional victims to contact him at 858-888-5331.
