New footage of a head-on crash allegedly caused by a Perth ‘paramedic’ shows the man behind the wheel sounding his horn, crossing double-white lines with unauthorised lights and sirens activated moments before he ploughs into a car coming in the opposite direction.
Jack Dunn, who is a managing director for Rescue Recovery 1, has been remanded in custody after he was charged with aggravated dangerous driving causing grievous bodily harm, four counts of aggravated dangerous driving causing bodily harm and attempting to pervert the course of justice over Sunday’s crash in Wanneroo.
His lawyer applied for bail citing concerns for his mental health at a court appearance on Tuesday, but police opposed the application and played footage taken from the dashcam of Dunn’s vehicle for the court.
The court heard Dunn was working for Rescue Recovery 1 – a private service that provides event medical, ambulance, and first aid training services – when he was called by one of his crews who were at a Jarrahdale event to come relieve them, while they attended to a patient and took them to hospital.
The footage, taken from both angles inside and outside the vehicle, shows Dunn driving on Franklin Road – a single lane carriageway in Perth’s north.
The song ‘The Sign’ by Ace Of Base is playing on the radio as Dunn’s Ford Everest gets up to 100 kilometres an hour on the 70 kilometre an hour stretch of road, running his lights and sirens.
Police allege the lights and sirens fitted to the car were not authorised, and a prosecutor said this appeared to lead a number of drivers to conclude he was the driver of an emergency vehicle.
The vision shows him sounding his horn at drivers to get them to pull out of the way, crossing over double white lines and driving contraflow to traffic.
At one point, Dunn comes over a crest on the road and sees a Mazda in the turning lane, and he crosses onto the wrong side of the road to avoid it. However, behind the Mazda is a grey Mercedes, and Dunn crashes head-on with the car.
Footage from inside the vehicle shows Dunn’s airbags deploy as he groans.
The court heard Dunn had gotten out of his vehicle after the crash and told the car’s occupants he was an off-duty paramedic. Dunn is not registered with the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency as a paramedic, which is a protected title.
Four people were injured in the crash, including a child. The driver of the car suffered fractured ribs and was later found to have a number of air pockets in their lungs, amounting to a grievous bodily harm charge.
The vision of the incident itself is also subject to a charge before the court, after police allege he took the memory card out of the mounted dashcam and put it in his pants pocket. When police asked Dunn where the memory card had gone, his lawyer told the court he panicked and said he didn’t know.
It was later located, and Dunn’s lawyer said he was used to having to quarantine evidence as an emergency responder and did not remember telling police he did not know where the card was. He was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.
The footage was integral to a decision by Magistrate Andrew Maughan’s decision to deny Dunn bail at a hearing on Tuesday.
“The case against him is so overwhelming that a term of imprisonment is inevitable,” Maughan said.
“There are no bail conditions that would satisfy me that his welfare is protected or that other road users were protected.
“Given what I’ve seen in that footage he was driving in a way that can only be described as contemptuous of other road users.”
It was a view echoed by the police prosecutor, who said after 15 years in the job, she “wouldn’t drive like that”.
When the vision was played to the court, Dunn appeared to suffer a medical episode and had to be briefly excused from appearing.
His lawyer said she was aware that Dunn had suffered seizures in the past, and had suffered two while in custody. However, the police prosecutor said if this was correct, his licence likely would have been subject to conditions. His lawyer argued his condition was not epilepsy, and was recorded as functional seizures.
She also said he had a history of panic attacks, and had suffered one while being arrested.
This masthead does not suggest any wrongdoing by Rescue Recovery 1.
Dunn has been remanded in custody and will be back before the court next month.
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