By Charles Romans
Carter County Times
The Carter County Emergency Ambulance Board met in regular session last Monday (July 15) to discuss issues including funding and the purchase of additional vehicles. The board also reviewed and approved the minutes of the June meeting and accepted the director and financial reports.
Director Tim Woods informed the board that there had been 591 calls in the previous month, with the transfer truck running nearly five calls per week, raising the yearly total to 3201 calls. Woods also told the board there was still a need for part-time paramedics, and that he had contacted the county judge executive concerning an opioid abatement refund.
Woods said that he included more statistics concerning the opioid abatement refund in a letter to the judge executive. Those statistics included how many calls were ran and how much money was lost on those calls. For 2023 calls the loss amounted to $96,000 due to drug related calls. Woods said that he expects this year’s loss to exceed the previous year, and also that he expects it to get much worse.
The condition of the vehicles in use was also discussed by Woods in the meeting. Some of the repairs needed included a rear air conditioning unit in one vehicle and either a blown engine or manifold issue with another, though in the latter case the repairs might be covered by a warranty. Another vehicle has been determined to have a bad transmission, but the cost of that repair has not been determined.
Woods said that in light of those issues he has reached out to three different ambulance manufacturers.
“We were looking at two trucks from Burgess that were between $240,000 to $260,000 each,” Woods told the board. “That would have put us at about $500,000,” he continued. “But we reworked that a little bit and got some numbers from Atlantic for a custom worked ambulance that was about $220,000.”
Additionally, he said he checked on another all-aluminum ambulance through Crestline, and one of the benefits he listed to this model was that it could easily be washed out with a water hose. All shelves inside were also metal and could be as easily cleaned. The price of this model was $160,000. Woods said this model looks just like the new truck the board had purchased in February of this year and was built on a Ford chassis. The more expensive vehicles were larger trucks on Chevy 3500 chassis, with longer and wider boxes.
“These are trucks the company had in demo status, and are ready to go at any time,” Woods said. “We are just looking at options to get something moving forward.”
Though the financing would not be a problem, Woods said he would prefer the less expensive option, and perhaps purchase two of that model at around $300,000. Another selling point to the Crestline vehicles, Woods said, was that he could not find any negative reviews in an online search.
The director’s report was accepted by the board, but no purchase decision was made.
Contact the writer at charles@cartercountytimes.com
