News

Ohio Town Loans Ambulance to Neighbor After Wreck

Ed Richter

05/13/2016

May 12--MIDDLETOWN -- It's good to have neighbors who help you in a pinch -- with a cup of sugar for that cake, or an emergency ambulance you can use to save residents' lives.

Trenton recently stepped up for Middletown with the ambulance, as Middletown did for Trenton in a similar situation years ago.

The loan to Middletown came after a vehicle fleeing an Ohio State Highway Patrol cruiser Dec. 17 around 2:30 a.m. slammed into a Middletown ambulance at about 90 mph at Roosevelt and Briel boulevards.

"The medic unit was transporting a patient to Atrium Medical Center," said Middletown Fire Chief Paul Lolli. "That patient was not injured and the three-man crew suffered only minor injuries."

But the medic unit was totaled, and the other vehicle's driver was uninsured, Lolli said.

"Fortunately, that (ambulance) was to be decommissioned in the spring of 2016 and replaced with a new medic unit," he said.

Middletown until now has had six ambulances in fleet: Four front-line medic units and two reserves that are used when others are out of service.

When the cruiser was wrecked in December, "we also had two of our other medic units go down with needed repairs," Lolli said. "Trenton mentioned to us that they had a spare ambulance that we could use if we needed one. We took Trenton up on this offer."

"This essentially is a good neighbor returning a kind gesture," Lolli said.

"They've done the exact same thing for us in the past," said Trenton City Manager John Jones, whose community was happy to help. "It's great to be able to help each other out."

Middletown is also a good neighbor with other communities in keeping emergency vehicles running.

Some nearby communities, including Carlisle and the Madison Twp. Fire Department, have utilized the services of the Middletown Municipal Garage for repairs to their fire apparatus and vehicles.

Carlisle has had their fire trucks serviced by the Middletown garage because their mechanics have all of the requisite certifications and may have some parts already in stock as a private garage would.

Village Manager Sherry Callahan said the hourly rate for the certified mechanic is in the $90 range, but Middletown may charge in the $60 an hour range, saving the village some money.

Callahan said when a fire unit needs to be serviced or repaired, one of the Carlisle firefighters, who also works for the city of Middletown, will take it there in the morning and return it back at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, Middletown received $49,000 from its insurance company for the Division of Fire's vehicle replacement fund. In April the city received two new ambulances: a replacement, plus an addition, increasing the fleet to seven.

"Those medic units will go into service in the next couple of weeks as the lettering and safety decals are completed," said Lolli, who added that response capabilities were not compromised due to ambulance fleet numbers.

"At no time has our response capabilities been compromised due to our ambulance fleet. In large part this has been due to our good neighbors, the City of Trenton, and the City of Middletown's Municipal Garage staff for providing us with excellent service in getting our vehicles serviced and repaired in a timely fashion," he said.