AMHERST, MASS. (WHDH) - The firefighters’ union is calling for more help from the city of Amherst after two wheels fell off an ambulance earlier this week.
Crews had just dropped off a patient at the hospital and were headed back to the station when Fire Chief Tim Nelson said the wheels on the back passenger side just sheared off. Thankfully, no one was hurt.
“The thing that keeps me up at night is worrying about our personnel,” Nelson said.
The chief said he feels this incident is part of a bigger problem that town leaders need to fix.
The town replaces their ambulances every 10 years but union officials and the department said they really need to be replaced every seven to eight years due to the harshness of New England weather.
“The mileage on an ambulance is not like a limo driver. You’re not in a soft, comfy vehicle all the time. When someone says they are having a heart attack, you want to get them to where they need to be as quickly as possible,” one firefighter said.
In a statement, the town manager told 7NEWS this incident was an unfortunate accident, however, “the town… follows a standard replacement schedule that rotates the oldest ambulances to a back-up position. At the time of this accident, the town’s newest ambulance, purchased four months ago, was out of service as it was being serviced at the dealer necessitating the activation of this ambulance.”
Chief Nelson said he hopes he can help solve the issue before it gets worse.
“A big, big part of my job is to let the town know the way things are, the way they should be, and how we can get there. And that’s what I’ve done since my first day here,” he said.
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