John Harder, Mobile Communication Services of Bowling Green, KY, was busy Monday retro fitting Clinton County’s newly delivered ambulance with radio and communication equipment.

The Clinton County Emergency Services, after literally a wait of a couple of years in the making, picked up a new and much needed ambulance to add to its fleet last week.

The new truck was picked up in Shelbyville, Tennessee on Friday, March 13, two days after Clinton Fiscal Court held a call meeting to transfer the necessary funds to make the purchase of the 2014 Chevrolet model vehicle.

The total cost was $91,650 but the bulk of the cost–all but $21,650–was in the form of $70,000 from two grants, one a $50,000 UDSA grant and another $20,000 from the Kentucky Emergency Services Board.

According to Director of Emergency Services Lonnie Scott, the process of obtaining the new ambulance has been somewhat lengthy for a couple of reasons.

The original grant application was filed about three years ago, but there were delays due to grant funds being available and once they were, there were another delay in having the chassis for the new truck built. Scott said that due to the high demand for new ambulances, Chevy was behind on the construction and that caused a delay of several more months before the new vehicle could actually be obtained.

The new ambulance will replace an older one that now has well over 200,000 miles, leaving the total ambulance fleet at five.

Scott said it has been about six years since a new ambulance was obtained by the local EMS. “We’d like to be able to purchase an ambulance about every other year to keep our fleet up to par, but due to high costs, funds aren’t available for that,” he said.

Scott and ambulance service employees Lucas Abner and Jerry Harris made the trip to Shelbyville last Friday to pick up the truck at Select Tech. The Emergency Services director noted that Select Tech has been servicing the local ambulance fleet for several years and have always done a good job of keeping the truck repaired and ready for use.