New truck to the Rescue in Warren

Town takes delivery of $289,000 rescue vehicle in the nick of time

By Ted Hayes
Posted 5/31/16

A harrowing game of musical ambulances is almost over, as Warren readies to put its latest rescue truck, Rescue 3, into service for the first time.

Over the past three weeks, Warren Rescue members …

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New truck to the Rescue in Warren

Town takes delivery of $289,000 rescue vehicle in the nick of time

Posted

A harrowing game of musical ambulances is almost over, as Warren readies to put its latest rescue truck, Rescue 3, into service for the first time.

Over the past three weeks, Warren Rescue members have had to scrounge ambulances wherever they could find them, and work long hours to fix the ones they have. A perfect storm of breakdowns plagued the department’s two trucks, leaving the department so short-handed that in several cases EMTs were sent to rescue calls in fire trucks.

“We were juggling trucks like crazy,” Fire Chief Al Galinelli said. “When you have six-year-old trucks with 160,000 miles on them, when they start breaking down it’s not a tire change; it’s all big stuff.”

But by Friday, the department should be ready to put its new, $289,000 rescue truck, into service. Though it arrived last week, the truck needs to pass a state inspection before it can be deemed ready for rescue runs. Voters approved the truck’s purchase at last year’s Financial Town Meeting; it was the first truck bought by the town in five years.

“It’s coming just in time,” said the chief.

In recent weeks, rescue workers had to get creative after both Rescues 1 and 2 went down.

Rescue 1 broke down about two weeks ago, the victim of a failed low pressure oil pump. It took about a week and a half to repair it. While the town could have been OK with the out-of-service truck, Rescue 2 went down shortly after Rescue 1 died. That one was the victim of a faulty cooling fan, and it is still out of service.

To make do, Warren borrowed two trucks — one from Alert Ambulance, and another from Specialty Vehicles in Attleboro, Mass., the company that is supplying the new rescue truck.

Though it looked like those two trucks would bridge the gap, the brakes failed on the Specialty Vehicles loaner early last week, just after Alert asked for its ambulance back.

“Where do you get brakes at 6 p.m. on a Monday night?” the chief asked.

Enter Capt. Butch Guertin and fellow fire fighter Mike Butler. The two put the truck up on blocks last Monday night and replaced the brake pads, getting it back on the road. It worked for a day or so, until the brake calipers died. Back in the shop it went, last Wednesday. So currently, that loaner is still in service while the department awaits the return of Rescue 2, and the arrival of the new Rescue 3.

The recent breakdown — and many months of costly repairs that have cost the town thousands — are due mostly to the 2013 budget season, when Warren faced a financial crisis. While the town used to have three trucks, that number was reduced by one several years ago as a cost-saving measure when it became clear that all departments had to tighten their belts.

At the same time, rescue runs were at an all time high last year. Crews responded to 2,677 fire and EMS calls, up 10 percent from 2014.

As a result, the chief said, repair costs mounted as the town worked to keep its aging fleet on the road.

“The repairs were killing me,” he said. “When you have one less truck you have to run the others more. It’s a domino effect and things break down.”

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.