New ambulance arrives at last in Washington

WASHINGTON — A new ambulance rig is now in the hands of Washington County, almost three years after the department paid for the over $450,000 vehicle and all of its equipment.

Ambulance Director Jordan Wright said the truck would ensure a consistently available emergency response service, not plagued by the maintenance troubles of an aging fleet.

“When you have older trucks and they go down for maintenance, you’re dependent on something,” he said. “As soon as we brought this back, we had a truck’s hydraulics break on it, and then we’ve got one that’s going to the shop tomorrow for a front end.”

The new ambulance is fully sported out, with a power cot and lift to help get patients in and out of the vehicle, a high-end touch-screen controlled monitor, and other state-of-the art equipment.

The long-awaited vehicle has spent years as a footnote in reports to county officials. In 2021, Supervisor Richard Young said the previous ambulance ordered by the county took just nine months to arrive. At that time, the now-delivered ambulance was expected to arrive by 2023, a delay that still had decision-makers unhappy. In 2022, supervisors struggled to plan budgeting for the vehicle, saying they didn’t know when manufacturers would finish the chassis. Worries of further delays threw a wrench in department budget planning for this fiscal year as well.

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