Our regular truck was picked up on Saturday to go to the shop for maintenance. That happens quite often since these units runs 24/7/365. So while it is there we get a backup unit. They are the oldest trucks we have in the system. Not only are they smaller, they are not equipped with an autoload, they are worn out and it is just a mess. But it is what it is. You know that you will get your regular unit back in a couple of days.

So we were driving down the road downtown Athens yesterday. We had just been disregarded from a call and turned off our lights and sirens. I was planning on turning into the gas station to my right about half a mile ahead of me. Suddenly the A/C went off and it blasted HOT air out. Great. Well, it was only an hour left of the shift and it’s our Friday. Then the doors started to lock and unlock in the same time the speedometer started to jump up and down but I was only going 30 miles an hour. What the heck is going on. Thankfully there was a turning lane there so I turned into it and just when I did the truck died. And it would not start up whatsoever.

I knew there was gas in the truck, almost 3/4 full so that was absolutely not the problem. We had power in the truck because the battery wasn’t clicking when we tried to start it. Well, it was just to call dispatch and say we are out of service, stranded downtown Athens and then call the mechanic who called a wrecker. Then it was just to wait…

It was a little scary to sit there and not be able to move because people don’t expect an ambulance to just stand and not move and they were driving quite close. Twice we were about to get hit. I don’t think we sat there more than 15 minutes until the wrecker came and shortly after a supervisor came to pick us and the equipment that couldn’t go with the truck (monitor, drugs, etc).

Needless to say, we were out of service the remaining 25 minutes of the shift and I hope that truck 1909 now will be retired for good. We put 197 miles on it yesterday… added to how many miles it had before that. It needs to be taken out of the fleet in my opinion because it is so wore down.

I’m off until Wednesday and hopefully our regular truck (1915) will be back by then… hopefully…