Oglesby has been getting by with one less ambulance for three-and-a-half weeks because one was involved in a traffic crash. City Commissioner Terry Eutis hopes to bring things back to normal in two or three more weeks with the purchase of a partly new, partly rehabbed vehicle.
Eutis says the ambulance that was hit from behind at a red light was used for taking patients from place to place when there was no emergency. For example, it could take someone with minor medical problems from a nursing home to a doctor’s office. The city’s two advanced ambulances for emergency calls are still running, so patients are still being picked up at homes, businesses, and traffic crash scenes when they need to go to a hospital.
The ambulance that’s out of service will be replaced for $230,000. That’s more than a totally new ambulance would cost, but Eutis says the wait for that would be up to two years. And those non-emergency transfers generate $1 million in billing per year. Eutis says in a good year, the city gets about half of what’s billed.