Somewhere inside this huge fireball is a Hummer which caught on fire on the Beltway outside Forestville, Maryland shortly after midnight last night. Man, it’s a good thing that the emergency crew which first spotted the flames was able to easily convince the woman driving the vehicle to put down her cell phone and get out, right? Uh, well:

Officials said an ambulance crew was first to spot the fire. It was burning underneath a Hummer traveling southbound on the Beltway in Forestville, Md. The ambulance had its lights and sirens on and tried to stop the driver, but officials said she was on her cell phone and did not immediately notice efforts to get her to pull over.

When she did finally stop near the Pennsylvania Avenue exit, Prince George’s County emergency officials said the woman did not want to get out of her SUV and refused to believe it was on fire. Eventually, she saw the flames herself and felt the heat coming from the undercarriage and got out.

Yeah, those pesky ambulance drivers are always trying to boss around the little guy, aren’t they? Hey, this is America, pal — if I want to be subsumed by flames inside my massive vehicle, I’ll do it.