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Former Canyon County paramedic Melissa R. Farris, 35, of Caldwell, died of asphyxiation after she was pinned under a closing bay door at her former ambulance station in Caldwell, Idaho, minutes after police said she called 911 to report a highway crash that never happened.

Farris was found trapped under the door at the Canyon County Paramedics building on Specht Avenue late on Oct. 1, 2009. Officers were dispatched about 11:25 p.m. after a report of a woman possibly caught under the garage door, and found Farris pinned and neither conscious nor breathing. They raised the door with help from firefighters and paramedics, and she was taken to Saint Alphonsus Regional Medical Center in Boise, where she died at 2 a.m. the next day. The Ada County Coroner's Office listed the cause as asphyxiation.

A few minutes before she was pinned, dispatchers had taken a call from a woman who gave the name Stacy and said a car had gone off into the median of Interstate 84 near milepost 22, west of Caldwell. "Yeah, my name is Stacy and I am driving toward Ontario, when a car went off into the median at mile marker 22," the caller said, according to the recording. She said she was hauling a cattle truck, had pulled over, and was going to walk back to the wreck. The call ran about two minutes, and she sounded out of breath. Caldwell Police Chief Chris Allgood said the caller was Farris. The crew that responded found no crash.

Investigators believe Farris waited for the ambulance to pull out and then tried to slip under the bay door as it came down, police said. Her vehicle was parked in a lot across the street. The door had safety sensors, but they were mounted higher than the sensors on a residential garage door, and she got under them without tripping them. Allgood said no one was left in the building after the ambulance left, and on-duty personnel did not know she was there or expect a visit from her.

Trapped under the door, Farris called 911 a second time. That call was real.

Canyon County Paramedics Deputy Director Scott Tucker said Farris worked for the agency from October 2001 to December 2008. He said he could not discuss why she left because it was a personnel matter. Allgood said it may never be known why she was trying to get into the station. A police report obtained by KBCI-TV said Farris' sister told investigators she may have been going after prescription medication stored in the building, The Associated Press reported.

Canyon County Coroner Vicki DeGeus-Morris, who had worked alongside Farris, called it "just a tragic, tragic thing." Farris grew up in the area, graduated from Nampa High School in 1992 and worked as a paramedic for Elmore County before Canyon County, according to her obituary. She was survived by her husband, Robert, and two sons, and was buried at Hillcrest Memorial Gardens in Caldwell.