Man Who Crashed Into Middlesex Hospital ER Dies

March 03--The man accused of crashing his car through Middlesex Hospital on Feb. 22 before lighting himself on fire has died, officials said Friday.

Steven Ellam, 27, had been in the burn unit at Bridgeport Hospital since the day of the incident.

Middlesex Hospital is set to reopen its emergency room Saturday morning for the first time since the crash and fire. In the nine days since then, contractors worked constantly to restore normal operations at the county's only hospital.

Middlesex had been operating a temporary emergency room in another section of the building since the incident, but had been unable to accept ambulance arrivals.

Police say Ellam's car contained a number of gasoline cans, and when he set himself on fire, the car quickly became engulfed in flames and thick black smoke.

The hospital's sprinkler system kept the fire under control, and firefighters put out the remainder with foam spray. The water, smoke and foam, rather than the fire itself, caused most of the damage to the emergency department, hospital officials said.

Middlesex was planning to begin moving emergency room patients into the repaired location Friday night, and normal operations are scheduled to resume by 8 a.m. Saturday. Ambulance arrivals will be accepted beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday.

Hospital CEO Vin Capece told reporters Friday that the bill to replace sheet rock, equipment and fixtures is more than $550,000. The total insurance claim, which includes a business disruption claim and other costs, will be more than $5 million, he said.

Twenty different contractors put in more than 4,000 hours combined to get the emergency room back in working order. Additional cleaning crews worked in 40-person shifts for several days straight, he said.

He said the contractors "put forth a huge, Herculean effort to get us back in business as quickly as they did. It's just amazing how quickly we're back up and running."

"I couldn't be more happy at the effort that was put forth," Capece said. "I would like to also thank all of our employees who have just come together in a way that words can't describe."

Police Chief William McKenna said local officers, along with state and federal agencies, are still investigating the crash.

"The evidence in this investigation, thus far, has revealed that Ellam's actions were intended to cause harm to others, yet we believe this incident was isolated and Ellam worked alone, as the sole source, in the outcome of the event. At this time, there are no indications of any further threats of violence to the hospital or the Middletown community," McKenna said in a statement Friday.

Hospital officials said water and smoke from the incident damaged about 90 percent of the emergency room's walls.

The main entrance to the emergency room won't be ready for another few days, but a temporary entrance is open at the end of Crescent Street just a few yards past the regular ER lobby.

The reopening restores a critical piece of the medical infrastructure in the region. Officials said the hospital averages 30 to 35 ambulance arrivals per day, so well over 200 ambulance trips were diverted to other facilities in central Connecticut.

"Those ambulances and those patients are still going somewhere, we anticipate that several of them have gone to our sister facilities in Marlborough and Westbrook, but we also certainly appreciate the fact that our colleagues in Hartford and throughout Connecticut have taken on an extra burden," said Dr. Jonathan Bankoff, chair of emergency medicine at Middlesex. "Business doesn't stop for emergency medicine, even when one of the facilities doesn't have a front door."

Why Ellam crashed into the hospital remains unclear.

Ellam had several serious assault convictions in the past, including one in 2016. He had served prison time, but more recently had held jobs at local restaurants where he was known as a model employee. In February, he began to get involved in a community group planning a new neighborhood center in Middletown's North End.

Vinnie Scileppi, owner of Illiano's Ristorante, said Ellam abruptly quit his job as a dishwasher at the South Main Street restaurant by text message the day before the crash. He didn't give a reason, Scileppi said.

Hours later, he drove his car, while naked, into the emergency room's lobby, officials said. After the crash he got out, doused himself in a flammable liquid and ignited it, they said.

He filmed the act in a live stream on his Facebook page. In the video that was widely shared, Ellam rants about the "illuminati," calls out President Donald Trump and refers to himself as Jesus Christ.

Family members declined to speak to The Courant on Friday.

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