Glenwood Fire Department Brings New Ambulance Into Service
Members of the Glenwood Fire Department push the new ambulance into the station during a ceremony Tuesday evening.
Joe Edwards (Joe Designer) carefully applies lettering on the box of the new ambulance.
Pastor Mike Metzler of Trinity Lutheran Church, a firefighter chaplain for the Glenwood Fire Department, offers a prayer for the department's new ambulance during Tuesday evening's ceremony.
The Glenwood Fire Department's new ambulance leaves the fire station on its first call at the conclusion of Tuesday's ceremony.
The Glenwood Fire Department’s new ambulance was officially put into service Tuesday night with a formal “push-in” dedication ceremony at the Glenwood Fire Station.
The new vehicle was built by Missouri-based Osage Ambulances and accepted by the department in May. Glenwood Fire Chief Matt Gray said the new “Medic 3” is a state-of-the-art ambulance. It’s replacing a 2013 vehicle that’s accumulated nearly 200,000 miles. The outgoing 2013 model will be sold and the department will continue to operate with three ambulances in its fleet. The new vehicle was built with a Ford F550 chassis.
“It’s well built. It’s constructed for safer transport for patients and the responders,” said Gray. “It has more safety features on it and the heavier duty chassis will be better than the F350 and F450s that ambulances were made with (previously).”
Additionally, Gray said the new ambulance has a more spacious box than its predecessor.
“I think it’s going to be a more comfortable ride for our patients. Also, there’s a little more room, so when crews need to get back there to work on a patient, they have more room,” he said. “Just throwing it out there, if you’re doing a full-blown CPR “code” call, you may have four or five people back there with a patient working on them.
“You’re going to have quite a few people back there and it gets kind of cramped back there with a smaller box, especially with our long transport times. We have 30-45 minute transport times, depending on where we’re at and they’ll be doing things with the patient as they’re going to the hospital.”
Tuesday evening’s public “push-in” ceremony involved first responders literally pushing the ambulance into the fire station.
The ceremony is a centuries-old tradition for fire departments, according to Gray.
“It goes clear back when horse-drawn apparatus were a thing,” he said. “They call them push-in ceremonies. Basically, when they got the new apparatus, the horses pushed them back into the bays. Basically, it’s a way to honor your new equipment when you roll it in.”