The man injured a Carlsbad Fire Department paramedic who reached into the car and tried to take the keys out of the ignition.

Carlsbad medics were in stop-and-go traffic on northbound Interstate 5 near Manchester Avenue around 6 p.m., returning from Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, when they spotted a man in his 20s walking on the shoulder between the left lane and the dividing rail, Battalion Chief Jim Torretto said. The medics stopped to help the man after hearing him tell a slowed driver that he needed a ride to his own stalled car and then seeing him try to ride on a vehicle's tire rack, Torretto said. The medics believed the man to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and the medics put him in them back of the ambulance and agreed to carry him to his car.

When they arrived at the car, a small sedan, a medic reached in the driver's side window to try to get the keys from the ignition, Torretto said. But the man jumped in through the passenger side door and drove away, briefly pinning the medic between the car and the center rail. The medic suffered only minor injuries, Torretto said.

The medics didn't note the car's license plate, and the driver was still at large Friday afternoon, California Highway Patrol Officer Takayuki Uemura said.

"The guy's gone in the wind," Uemura said.