The Board of Trustees and the members of the Tri-Village Rescue Services are proud to put into service a 2012 Braun International Terra Star ambulance purchased on Valentine’s Day to replace the oldest ambulance in the Tri-Village fleet.
The New unit was a demo from Braun ambulance. This unit traveled all across the country to different ambulance shows, which helped to reduce its price tag from $190,000.00 to $150,000.00, saving the tax payers almost $40,000.00 dollars. The unit only had 20,000 miles on it, which is not a lot for this type of chassis. The unit replaced a 16 year-old Braun ambulance that was starting to have major issues and costing the district a lot of money to maintain. The new unit has all the newest in safety equipment for both the patients and the crew. Eric Burns, the Chief of the department, is quoted as saying “This will be a 12 to 15 year truck buying the heavier chassis we will be able to extend the life of our ambulances. We now have two ambulances that will last this organization well into the future. The nice thing about Braun ambulance is that we can take the boxes off when the chassis needs replaced and put the box on a new chassis and save money on the units by continuing to use the same box. We chose Braun because they are built in Van Wert, Ohio and we can get quick service without having to ship the truck out of state.”
Larry Royer, the President of the Joint Ambulance District, stated that the new truck is going to be a win-win for the district. Not only will it be dependable but it will save us in repair cost. Over the last 25 years I have helped replace 4 ambulances here at Tri-Village Rescue and have seen the cost of those ambulances go from the mid $50,000.00 dollar range to well over $150,000.00 and they are only going to get more expensive with the increase in government regulations placed on the manufacturers of these units. If we purchased this ambulance as a new unit just built, it would have cost the district an additional $60K with the new regulations so we saved a great deal of funds doing it this way.
Delbert Braun, President of Tri-Village Rescue Services Board, stated that Chief Burns and his staff have shown by replacing the old unit with a demo unit that the Members and the Board of trustees are cautious concerning the districts funding and saving the district money. We as members of the Tri-Village Rescue Services district are blessed to have such an outstanding group of medical professionals volunteering for our organization.