VIDEO: Imagine youโre in the back of an ambulance, one of the scariest moments of your life, and the truck breaks down. You have to wait for another ambulance to come pick you up and take you to the hospital. That was the reality for some patients and first responders in Alachua County, but now theyโve received brand new, state-of-the-art ambulances to continue serving the community in the best way they can.
ACFR EMS Chief Misty Woods tells TV20 they couldnโt have come at a better time. โWe have not received any new ambulances since pre-COVID,โ Misty shared. โAnd before pre-COVID, we used to receive 16 new ambulances every year, so weโre about 16 ambulances behind right now.โ But now, theyโre up five. โJust last week we broke down on the way to the hospital with a patient in the back of the ambulance and we had to call a tow truck to come pick us up,โ Woods added. โHistorically, we put a truck into reserves, so a truck thatโs not a frontline apparatus will go into reserve around 150,000 miles, We {currently} have frontline trucks right now that have over 350,000 miles on the road and thatโs just not fair to the citizens and itโs not fair to our guys to have to worry about the status of the apparatus you know?โ
Four years of breaking down, and now theyโve upgraded to Four-wheel drive. The new trucks are up to date with latest crash ratings, and will be equipped with outward, cab-facing video cameras, and a semi-automatic stretcher. โObviously, {weโre} getting them stocked up, getting radios hooked up and stuff like that, we hope to have them in service and on the road by the end of this month.โ Woods also tells TV20 that seven more of these ambulances are coming to Alachua County in January, completing a fleet of 12 life-saving vehicles.
