Washington County gets new ambulance

The Washington County Ambulance has a new ambulance in its fleet.

'We just got it last week,” said Washington County Ambulance director Richard Young. 'It's a remount. They take the chastity off the old one, rebuild that box, make it like new and then they repaint it.”

The county tries to have it's ambulances remounted every five years or when they reach over 200,000 miles, Young said. New equipment also comes with the remounted chastity.

'It's got a self-loading cot,” Young said, 'so we don't have to ever pick it up.”

The ambulance also will lift up and down on its own when you open the back doors and a new hydraulic system, he added.

'Instead of having air shocks it's what they call a hydraulic system for the ride and then up in the cab there is a button to push to control the softness or the stiffness [of the ride],” Young said.

The county has four ambulances and has two staffed every day for calls, he said. They have a 2015 ambulance that they will begin to start planning for fiscally.

The cost to have this ambulance remounted was $157,958.

'It saves the county quite a bit of money,” he said. 'To buy a brand-new one you're talking $250,000 approximately. It's a savings to the county of about $100,000 doing it that way.”

Each remounted vehicle comes with a 10-year warranty. The county has the ambulances remounted twice usually before they trade them in for a different vehicle, Young said.

'And you're going to save about $200,000 doing that, so then you're going to have almost the price of a new one in savings,” he said.