The Grays Harbor Fire District 5, which serves portions of the East County, announced on Thursday the purchase of an additional ambulance to add to its Emergency Medical Service.

The vehicle, a 2011 Ford F450 equipped with a wheeled coach box and upgraded gurney loading system, was purchased for $85,000 in a Fire District 5 Board of Commissioners special meeting on July 7 and has been in full service since Aug. 1.

The district purchased the ambulance using a combination of budgeted ambulance replacement funds and Ground Emergency Medical Transport funds, which is federal Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement for transport services.

The 4×4 vehicle is powered by a 6.7 liter diesel engine and currently has 52,800 miles on the odometer.

One of the key features of the vehicle, according to the department’s Public Information Officer Brian Baldwin, is it comes equipped with a Stryker Power Gurney system, which normally cost approximately $40,000 new.

“The power gurneys allow for safer lowering and rising without the strain on responder’s backs and provides a smoother transition (of patients) to and from ambulances,” he wrote in an email. “(The) moving of patients to and from their homes, or positions where they are found, is one of the primary pieces of transporting an individual to the hospital. Using power gurneys and load systems help that transition being smoother. Without these systems, providers have to lift and maneuver legs of the gurney manually which causes a hazard and potential of losing the patient off of the gurney. The safety of our patients is number one, and this helps us with that goal.”

The purchase of the additional ambulance brings the fire districts total number of ambulances to five in its fleet, which covers an area that includes Satsop to McCleary and south to Porter. However, two of those vehicles have recorded over 200,000 miles and have been placed on a “standby” status.

Baldwin explained the district plans on “phasing out” the higher-mileage vehicles over the next few years as part of a future ambulance replacement plan chief Adam Fulbright plans to implement that would allow the district to “minimize the higher costs of maintaining older equipment and creating a more reliable fleet for the community.”

“A replacement plan that we would be looking at would be to replace an ambulance every five years, with an average of about 50,000 miles of use per year (200,000 at the end of that five years),” Baldwin wrote.

Fire District 5 has plans to change the color scheme of the ambulance, from white to black using a color wrap, and the addition of the district vehicle logo to match the fleet design.

“The goal with the new ambulance will to have it match our other apparatus of the district, which follows a more black and red scheme as opposed to red and white,” Baldwin wrote.