Fiscal court approves emergency purchase for new ambulance

Published 9:39 am Thursday, December 13, 2018

The Jessamine County Fiscal Court unanimously approved an emergency order for a little more $210,000 at its last meeting for the purchase of a new EMS vehicle after several of the county’s ambulances were declared inoperable, making it impossible to run service for the whole county.

“Yesterday, when I came in, I was informed we had several vehicles down,” Judge-Executive David West said at the meeting. “I just kind of got a synopsis that we have eight ambulances (including) one had electrical issues, two was operational, three needs a turbo, four is currently being remounted, five is operational, six had electrical transmission problems, seven was operational, eight was operational and nine has a steering problem. Four will be ready in February.”

West said the current mileage for each vehicle is as follows: ambulance one, 100,000; two, 240,000; three, 214,000; four, 150,000; five, 160,000; six, 25,000 and seven 240,000. Director of Emergency Services for Jessamine County Jamie Goodpaster said industry standard suggests an ambulance is no longer used after 150,000 miles.

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“In the past, we have not had a remounting schedule,” Goodpaster said. “It is my recommendation that we institute a remounting schedule that way we don’t come upon these problems again. Yesterday, we had three ambulances total to run service for the county when we normally run five. That is a pretty low amount of ambulances that did not provide service for the whole county. When that happens, we have to call other counties in and if they are not available, then patients could wait quite a significant amount of time in order to get care.”

West said a discussion was held prior to the meeting about a demo ambulance the county could purchase that would upgrade the current fleet and allow the county to continually have one ambulance in a remount phase rotating in and out of the EMS line up of vehicles.

This would allow the county to keep its ambulances for 10 to 12 years and put each vehicle on a seven-year rotation.

“It is my recommendation, and you have an emergency order before you that would authorize and declare an emergency situation and make a purchase of $210,982.18 to alleviate the current situation,” West said at the meeting. “We have identified some money in the LGEA fund, as well as some money we had put aside for economic development we do not think we are going to have an expenditure on this year.”

The request to sign the order was met with a passing vote from all present magistrates, Terry Meckstroth, Tim Vaughn, Gary Morgan, Justin Ray and Paul Floyd.

a little more $210,000 at its last meeting for the purchase of a new EMS vehicle after several of the county’s ambulances were declared inoperable, making it impossible to run service for the whole county.

“Yesterday, when I came in, I was informed we had several vehicles down,” Judge-Executive David West said at the meeting. “I just kind of got a synopsis that we have eight ambulances (including) one had electrical issues, two was operational, three needs a turbo, four is currently being remounted, five is operational, six had electrical transmission problems, seven was operational, eight was operational and nine has a steering problem. Four will be ready in February.”

West said the current mileage for each vehicle is as follows: ambulance one, 100,000; two, 240,000; three, 214,000; four, 150,000; five, 160,000; six, 25,000 and seven 240,000. Director of Emergency Services for Jessamine County Jamie Goodpaster said industry standard suggests an ambulance is no longer used after 150,000 miles.

“In the past, we have not had a remounting schedule,” Goodpaster said. “It is my recommendation that we institute a remounting schedule that way we don’t come upon these problems again. Yesterday, we had three ambulances total to run service for the county when we normally run five. That is a pretty low amount of ambulances that did not provide service for the whole county. When that happens, we have to call other counties in and if they are not available, then patients could wait quite a significant amount of time in order to get care.”

West said a discussion was held prior to the meeting about a demo ambulance the county could purchase that would upgrade the current fleet and allow the county to continually have one ambulance in a remount phase rotating in and out of the EMS line up of vehicles.

This would allow the county to keep its ambulances for 10 to 12 years and put each vehicle on a seven-year rotation.

“It is my recommendation, and you have an emergency order before you that would authorize and declare an emergency situation and make a purchase of $210,982.18 to alleviate the current situation,” West said at the meeting. “We have identified some money in the LGEA fund, as well as some money we had put aside for economic development we do not think we are going to have an expenditure on this year.”

The request to sign the order was met with a passing vote from all present magistrates, Terry Meckstroth, Tim Vaughn, Gary Morgan, Justin Ray and Paul Floyd.