Cole County Commission approves ambulance purchases

Cole County Emergency Medical Services officials will purchase two new ambulances after getting approval from the Cole County Commission on Tuesday.

EMS director Matt Lindewirth said some of the agency’s ambulances have too many miles and constantly need maintenance. Cole County EMS has 12 ambulances in its fleet and the two new ones will replace two on the front lines.

“The two that we take out of the front line service will then become our backups,” Lindewirth said.

The Cole County Commission will sign a letter of intent to move forward with the purchase from Demers, a different provider than the county has used in the past.

“We weren’t looking to use someone else,” Lindewirth said. “What we were looking to do was find a competitive price.”

The purchase from Demers comes in almost $20,000 under the budget of about $235,000 per ambulance and equipment, while a purchase from Osage Industries would have come in nearly $23,000 over budget.

Cole County financial statements showed that most of the current ambulances were purchased between 2012 and 2014.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this story misstated information about backup ambulances.