MI City Moving Ahead on Ambulance Plans

Aug. 21 -- ADRIAN, MI -- A critical piece to the city of Adrian taking on its own full-time ambulance service is getting a second ambulance in place by the new year.

That piece will be put in place with the unanimous approval of the Adrian City Commission on Monday. The city will be getting a Braun ambulance from Kodiak Emergency Vehicles of Grand Ledge at a cost not to exceed $219,894.

"With the decision to terminate the ambulance contract with Lenawee Community Ambulance, we have researched the purchase of an additional ambulance needed to begin our own full-time transport service," Adrian's interim fire chief Aric Massingill said in his recommendation memo to the commission and city administrator.

He said extensive research was done by a committee consisting of Adrian firefighters Dave Comfort, Steve Cushing, Brandon Hughes and himself to find the most cost effective option for an ambulance purchase.

"Part of the selection process involved spending hours on the telephone talking to other fire departments to determine their experience with bidding manufacturers as well as evaluating some units in person," Massingill said.

He said the overwhelming response to their phone survey was, "anyone with a Life Line or Braun ambulance had multiple units from their respective manufacturer."

"They all said they had bought from other manufacturers in the past and would never buy anything other than the Life Line or Braun ambulances they owned," Massingill said. "The other manufacturer reviews ranged from marginal to poor and very few of the fire departments we called had purchased a second ambulance from the same manufacturer due to quality and reliability issues."

In his memo, Massingill said the Life Line and Braun units were the frontrunners in quality, warranty and meeting specifications, but the Life Line bid was missing a few important items compared to the Braun bid.

"But the biggest issue with the Life Line bid is that they cannot provide an ambulance by the December 1, 2018 deadline," he said. "This deadline is required to have a unit stocked and licensed to provide ambulance service on January 1, 2019."

As far as the cost, he said, "as I outlined last week at the commission meeting, the cheapest option for emergency vehicles is not always the most economical option."

"As a committee, we unanimously decided the Braun ambulance was the most economical option when safety, construction, customer reviews and bid specifications were considered," Massingill said.

A demo of the ambulance was presented to the commission and public attending the premeeting before the regular meeting, which was parked outside the city chambers building.

Massingill said one of the important aspects to the ambulance is that it is, "made to last."

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