It was the ride of Philip Wheeler’s young life, one he had never taken before and hopes he’ll never take again.

It was an ambulance ride — complete with siren blaring — that Wheeler never should have taken in the first place.

The Indianapolis Colts’ second-year linebacker was playing center field for his Edgewood Park Little League team in Columbus, Ga. A fly ball sailed into the alley in left-center. Wheeler gave chase. So did the left fielder.

“I ran right into him,” Wheeler said. “He was bigger than me, so I took the worst of it.”

Wheeler, 11 or 12 at the time, hit the ground after he hit his teammate. The coaches came running to his side.

“They asked me if I was hurt and I said something like, ‘My leg,’ " Wheeler said. "I was looking around and everybody was looking at me, then I said, ‘My neck.’

“And I wasn’t really hurt. I was more embarrassed than anything because everybody was making such a big deal out of it, and I wanted to get up.”

Wheeler’s embarrassing moment was just getting started.

“It got out of hand in a hurry,” he said.

A gate opened and an ambulance drove onto the field. The paramedics pulled out a gurney and put the fallen Little Leaguer on it. Away they went to a local hospital.

“I was fine, but they took me anyway,” he said. “I was trippin’ on the ride to the hospital.”

There, he was checked out and released. A doctor informed him he was fine, which Wheeler already knew.

He said his mom wasn’t upset with what amounted to an unnecessary trip to the hospital.

“She thought it was good that I went through the whole deal just to make sure,” Wheeler said.

And about that fly ball that started things rolling?

“Nobody caught it,” Wheeler said. “Dude scored and everything.”