BEVERLY — A Lawrence man admitted yesterday to stealing an ambulance outside Beverly Hospital and taking it on a wild ride down Route 1A into Lynn last February.

William Guzman Jr., 39, was sentenced to 21’Ñ2 years in jail during a hearing yesterday in Peabody District Court. He's already served nearly a year of that time.

Guzman was out on bail in an unrelated home-invasion case in Haverhill and was being treated at CAB Health and Recovery Services, a drug treatment program, when he reported that he was not feeling well.

He was taken to Beverly Hospital.

But instead of getting treatment, Guzman ran to an unattended and running ambulance parked outside the emergency room and took off on a ride through Beverly, Salem, Swampscott and Lynn.

Along the way, he crashed into two Salem police cruisers, totaling one of them, and several other vehicles.

As Guzman headed south on Route 1A, Lyons Ambulance employees called police and used the vehicle's GPS to track it down on Rantoul Street, where police were soon behind it as it crossed the bridge into Salem.

Guzman apparently got lost at one point, heading onto Fort Avenue and then out toward Winter Island Road.

He went to the end of the road, then turned around, got stuck in a snowbank, then freed himself and drove back toward downtown.

He collided head-on with a police cruiser and then headed into the downtown area, where he hit another cruiser on Fort Avenue.

He struck at least three other drivers in Salem and then two more in Swampscott as he barreled through Vinnin Square.

Eventually, he got stuck in traffic in Lynn and bailed out of the ambulance, taking refuge in the hallway of an apartment house.

That's where police caught up with him and arrested him following a struggle.

A co-defendant in Guzman's home-invasion case, Miguel Caraballo, also made headlines when he escaped while being led from a jail transport van into Salem Superior Court last year.