PHILLIPSTON — At their meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 23, members of Phillipston’s Selectboard considered several options for dealing with a problem with the town’s ambulance that recently came to light. Board Chair Bernie Malouin said Fire Chief Jeff Parker informed him the emergency vehicle was having engine problems. Some options could potentially leave the town without its own ambulance service for at least a short amount of time.
“I don’t know that it’s a blown engine,” said Malouin, “but it’s got diesel fuel in the oil, and they said something is cracked inside. The fuel is getting in there. When I talked to Chief Parker, he said that he could keep running it the way it is, but they don’t know when it’ll go. It could last six months or a year, or it could last a week.”
Parker asked Malouin if the board would like him to replace the engine or consider other options.
“He was asking me what we thought he should do,” Malouin continued. “Should they have it replaced? I think it’s $7,000 to $8,000 to replace the engine. It would be out of service for about a month. So, I told him, let’s just keep running it until we discuss it as a board.”
Malouin added that the town is looking at purchasing a new ambulance, possibly with state aid.
“That being said, (Chief Parker) also said that once he orders the new ambulance, it’s seven months or more before we’ll see it,” he explained. “So, given that we probably won’t have the funding for another month or two or three, and then seven months — we’re looking at a year out.
“What’s the board’s pleasure on this one?”
“Seeing the condition of the auto market at this point,” board member Gerhard Fandreyer replied, “trying to get parts and all that stuff — I talked to somebody else about this — it seems like the most economical thing to do at this point would be to just replace the engine, as long as the body is fine and the rest of it is in good shape.
“If an engine is, what, 8-grand to have it changed, we can make that back in about three years. That’s fine. I think it would behoove us just to go ahead and replace the engine.”
Finance Committee Chair Tom Specht agreed that replacing the engine would be the best option.
“Even if we had another ambulance we could hook into,” he said, “an ambulance without an engine isn’t worth anything to anybody. I think if we put the engine in, and we do get a new ambulance a year from now, I think we should keep the old ambulance and turn it into some kind of a command center for police and fire and roads.”
Malouin also discussed options for covering the period the current ambulance would be down for the engine replacement.
“You can lease an ambulance for a period of time,” he said. “If I understood correctly, Chief Parker said it would be down for a couple of weeks or a month. He’s not sure they do long-term leasing, like up to a year; he wasn’t so sure about that.
“So, there will be some other costs associated with it if we have to lease an ambulance for the month it takes to replace the engine.”
“My understanding is,” board member Thom Daoust interjected, “is that the majority of our ambulance calls actually get taken care of by Athol. So, the response is coming from there.
“I would like to know how much use we’re getting out of our ambulance. I understand the concept of having one, but if all the services are coming out of Athol and we’re only using it like once a month, is it something we really need to spend the money on? I’m just thinking out loud.”
“Keep in mind,” said Malouin, “that supposedly we have 300-something-thousand dollars earmarked for a new ambulance.”
At Specht’s suggestion, Malouin said he would ask Chief Parker to see if the Athol Fire Department would agree to cover ambulance calls in Phillipston while Phillipston’s is being repaired.
“I know a little bit about this,” said Highway Department Director Rick Tenney. “There’s a couple of things that could be going on. It could be a head gasket and it could also be a fuel injector problem. I do think we should get a second opinion on it, for one, and two, something to keep in mind — that ambulance only has like 45,000 miles on it.
“So, it would definitely be worth fixing it, whether you decide to fix the issue or replace the motor, because I do know there are probably several local towns that are interested in buying it. And, as Tom Specht said, that ambulance is not worth anything with a junk motor in it.
“You might be able to repair the head gasket and fix it and it could be good for another 150,000 miles. So, I definitely wouldn’t be jumping to get a brand new motor in it yet, but I would get a second opinion.”
Tenney estimated the age of the ambulance as between 10 and 15 years old.
It was determined no final decision will be made on how best to deal with the issue until the options discussed have been further explored.
Greg Vine can be reached at gvineadn@gmail.com