From Hero to Zero: The Rise and Fall of Florida’s Fire Truck Bandit
Oh, Florida, you never seem to disapoint. This time, we have the fire truck Bandit. Meet Belinda Delores Waugh, a woman who probably thought she could outsmart everyone and star in her own version of “Firefighter Gone Wild.”
According to the Miami Herald, this genius decided to commit a daring heist on July 15th at the Wellborn Volunteer Fire Department station. She probably planned her getaway carefully, strategizing her escape route from the station… right until she realized that gas was a thing. You know you’ve made questionable life choices when you’re driving a stolen fire truck and you have to call the fire chief to tell him that, oops, you ran out of gas!
It appears that our fire-truck-Bandit had a rather cozy arrangement with the volunteer fire department chief. It’s like a sleepover gone terribly wrong… or maybe terribly right, depending on how you look at it.
You see, the chief, in a gesture of misguided hospitality, allowed Belinda to crash at the fire station overnight. Little did he know that he was harboring a fire truck thief with ambitions of becoming Florida’s stupid crimminal.
Fire Truck Bandit:
Woman accused of impersonating firefighter after stealing firetruck, Florida cops say https://t.co/kQmIfGkob5
— Miami Herald (@MiamiHerald) July 19, 2023
As dawn broke and the chief headed back to the station to answer a call, that’s when the alarm bells started ringing – quite literally. The fire truck was nowhere to be found, and Belinda, along with her newfound four-wheeled friend, had vanished into thin air.
The cherry on top of this hilarious sundae is when the Suwannee County Sheriff’s deputies caught up with Belinda and the fire truck. She actually tried to say that she was a firefighter. Like her scay looking self would fool them. I can almost hear the deputies saying, “Ma’am, if you’re really a firefighter, then where’s your Dalmatian? As it turns out, Belinda wasn’t on the official roster, and her dreams of being a hero were quickly extinguished.
Now, our aspiring fire marshal finds herself in a different kind of hot seat – the Suwannee County Jail. She’s facing charges of grand theft and fraud, all for her short-lived career as an impersonator extraordinaire.
And there you have it. Belinda Delores Waugh. Florida’s finest fire truck thief.
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