Runaway mental patient bites EMT

Jason Hundrup, 41, the Asotin resident who reportedly bit an ambulance driver and became the object of an early morning search Sunday in the Cashup area, was taken by deputies to Eastern State Hospital after a first appearance in court here Monday.

Hundrup, who was booked on probable charges of assault, malicious mischief and resisting arrest, was allowed release on the pending local charges on condition that he go to Whitman Hospital under custody of deputies to be physically checked out and then proceed to Eastern State Hospital under custody. He was ordered to undergo the examination pursuant to the authorization which was issued in Asotin County to determine competency.

Hundrup was booked into the jail here early Sunday morning after deputies responded to a report that he had assaulted the driver of an ambulance and ran off into the night in the Cashup Flat area north of Steptoe. The arrest report said Hundrup was located by deputies in Cottonwood Creek near a bridge on Ragon Road at the southeast corner of the flat. He was taken into custody after he was subdued by five officers. The struggle involved multiple shots from a taser gun at the scene.

He was booked into jail on probable charges of assault, malicious mischief and resisting arrest. One of the two malicious mischief charges involved alleged damage to the interior of the ambulance which put it out of service.

At one point in the episode, after the suspect became violent and left, the two ambulance crew members locked themselves in the ambulance for protection.

The arrest report said deputies attempted to find the suspect using a heat detector gun from the Colfax police department and later called in a Sheriff’s helicopter fitted with the body heat detector from Spokane County.

The ambulance crew reportedly picked up Hundrup at Tri-State Hospital in Clarkston Saturday night for a trip to Eastern State Hospital for observation on a 72-hour involuntary hold. The ambulance crew members said the suspect started the trip on the bed in the back of the ambulance, but he began to undo the belts as the crew rolled north from Colfax. He eventually made his way to the passenger seat and reportedly “went off” when a phone rang in the ambulance.

The report said he began to scuffle with the driver, John Culleto, while Culleto was attempting to talk on the phone. Hundrup bit the ring finger on the driver’s left hand and then jumped out of the stopped ambulance, the report alleged.

The two crew members said they last saw the suspect running up an embankment. Shortly after the suspect left the ambulance, the sheriff’s office received a call that a rock had been thrown through the window of a residence on Klaveano Road, the old Highay 195 route.

The report by Deputy Dan Brown said he followed tracks in a garbanzo field toward the area of Ragon Road. The tracks were lost in tall grass, but the suspect was later located standing in the creek.

Three deputies, a Colfax officer and a state trooper were all involved in subduing the suspect after he remained standing in Cottonwood Creek and failed to respond to instructions to surrender, the report said.