Letter: Catastrophic Failure Of Town Ambulance Underscores Need For New Equipment Replacement Schedule

The following letter was sent to the Amherst Town Council on April 21, 2022.

Your firefighters have been requesting the resources that we need to serve our community safely and effectively. We have expressed our needs for additional staffing, the replacement of our failing vehicles and equipment, and the negative effect that those issues have on the morale and operation of our department. These issues are beginning to spiral out of control, and are risking the physical and mental health of your firefighters.

Shortly after midnight on Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 one of our ambulances, R-12, was returning to Amherst after transporting a patient to Cooley Dickinson Hospital. During the return trip, the two firefighter/paramedics in the ambulance suddenly felt a shake that immediately turned into a crashing sound. The two passenger-side rear wheels of their ambulance had sheared off, causing the ambulance to crash into the pavement shooting sparks as the crew skillfully stopped the vehicle in the road without injuring anyone in the process. The crew then had to pick the pieces of their shattered ambulance out of the road to further mitigate the danger to the public caused by our failing equipment.

We are thankful that neither of our members were injured in this incident; the outcome could have been much worse. Had the ambulance been patient-loaded, or had it been during a different time of day, there could have been multiple parties involved or injured in the incident, as this is a very busy roadway.

Right now the Joint Capital Planning Committee has the requested capital proposal from our chief officers. For the past eight years we have been requesting to shift the replacement cycle of our ambulances from 10 years to 7-8 years, allowing us to replace them before catastrophic failure occurs. Our ambulances are running more calls every year, in all weather, on New England roads and these are hard miles on the vehicles.

Budget considerations attributed to COVID-19, delayed the purchase of a replacement ambulance last year. This replacement was scheduled on the antiquated 10 year replacement schedule, which was already behind a year. This has left us not only behind for the replacement but also down an ambulance that is utilized far more than it should be as a backup. Our fifth ambulance, when it is in operational condition, is used to cover sporting events, concerts, road races and other events where an ambulance is required. This ambulance also serves as a back up whenever one of the front line ambulances is out for repairs or needs to be removed from service. Unfortunately our backup ambulance is used far too often as a front line ambulance. It is critical to  our operation that this ambulance be replaced before the age at which these  vehicles predictably encounter a major failure.

We learned from our experience with the R-11 vehicle that a major failure can be anticipated before the ten year mark of their service life. The service life of these vehicles renders a 10 year replacement schedule unsustainable. The specific details of this particular event could not have been reasonably foreseen. However, it is evident in maintenance and incident records that major vehicle failures significantly disrupt our operation when they reach a service life of 8-10 years. Our safety and effectiveness relies on critical equipment being replaced and maintained on a sustainable schedule. When the R-12 (2012) suffered this failure; it had 154,989 miles on it. At the time of this writing, our remaining ambulances were put into service in ‘15, ‘16, ‘18, and ‘21 and have 156,092mi 122,932 mi, 98,757 mi, and 8,499 mi on them respectively.

We urge you all to work with our department’s administration, the Town Manager and the Joint Financial Planning Committee to begin to ameliorate the issue of our failing equipment. There have been multiple capital proposals to update our ambulances and equipment on a sustainable schedule however they have continuously been ignored.

The more equipment that fails, the more our remaining equipment is used to the point of failure, and this spins out of control. Unfortunately this already occurred and we cannot change what has happened. We can work together to begin to correct this problem in the future or we will suffer more catastrophic equipment failures and risk the lives of the public and your firefighters, while failing to protect the public and provide the services they deserve.

Ben Graham

Ben Graham is President of Amherst Fire Fighters Local 1764