County approves purchase of new ambulance
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By Carmen Ensinger
After close to a year of deliberations, the Greene County Board finally pulled the trigger and approved the purchase of a new ambulance for the county.
By a 6-1 vote at the April meeting, the board approved the purchase of a 2022 F-450 diesel 4×4 ambulance on a truck chassis from ARV at a total price of $221,354 which included a $14,000 trade in.
Greene County Ambulance Director Marc Clark approached the board with bids for a new ambulance last year after the transmission went out on the 2013 ambulance leaving the county with just two rigs – two 2019 Ford E-350 gas model vehicles, one of which currently had, as of March 22, 127,800 on it and the other 68,000 on it.
“The type we have now is a Type 3 on a van chassis, but we are not getting the life out of them that we would like so we are looking at the Type 1 on a truck chassis,” Clark said. “There are two options here – the one ton, F350 or the ton-and-a-half chassis F450. Both are diesel and four-wheel-drive.”
The price difference on the F350 and the F450 is a little over $28,000 with the F350 coming in at $193,279.
By getting the truck chassis, instead of replacing the entire ambulance down the road, the back part of the ambulance can just be remounted on a new chassis saving around $70-$80,000 when it comes time to invest in a new ambulance.
The good news is the new rig will get better gas mileage than the current gas fueled ambulances. The new diesel ambulance will average between 10.5 to 11 miles per gallon while the current gas ambulances average only 8 to 9 miles per gallon.
The bad news is that it will take between 440 to 520 days to take delivery of the ambulance. For those mathematically challenged, that is between 14 and 17 months or between a year and a year and a half.
Until the county could decide to purchase the new ambulance, they agreed to purchase a used 1998 Ford E350 diesel unit from a local ambulance service who discontinued their service. This vehicle had only 76,500 on it.
It was put into service in October of last year and in December had to have a fuel leak repaired. In February it was once again taken out of service to have the upper and lower ball joins replaced, along with the sway bar, new front brakes with calipers rotors and hoses. In five months, the rig has been in service for less than 2,000 miles.
