One year ago, the Volunteers of CLES begin discussing the need for a new ambulance to replace the 20+ year old Wheeled Coach unit that has been serving the community for the past 2 decades. With over 140,000 miles and mounting maintenance costs, it was time to take action. As CLES is completely volunteer without a tax base, many donation drives were held to raise the $215K needed to purchase a new unit. Extensive research was done to seek out an ambulance builder that produced a very reliable state of the art product at a competitive price point. CLES chose to contract with Frazer Inc. in Houston, TX. This company has a 40+ year history of manufacturing EMS units for many departments across Texas and many states in the lower 48. The all women-owned company produces an extremely reliable product with a fantastic reputation.
A contract was executed last year for delivery this spring. Last week, we were able to take delivery on this new ambulance. It far exceeded our expectations. In order to reduce costs, two of our volunteers flew to Houston and drove the unit to Tacoma WA. Matson freight donated space on their vessel for the ambulance to be shipped from Tacoma WA to Anchorage. The new ambulance is scheduled to arrive on May 1st and will be placed into service later in the week.
We want to thank all of our volunteers for the many hours they gave collecting donations and we especially want to thank all of the businesses and community members for their financial donations to the department to make the huge milestone possible. The new ambulance will be able to serve our community for many years to come!
