Copyright 2006 The Omaha World-Herald Company
By PAUL HAMMEL
Omaha World-Herald
LINCOLN, Neb. — The village of Harrison, Neb., is gambling that gamblers will help replace an aging ambulance.
The Harrison Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department recently launched a $100-per-ticket “Ambulance Lottery” to raise $135,000 to buy a new rescue squad. The vehicle would replace a 1985 model that is wearing out.
Harrison, a Panhandle community of 279, and the sparsely settled ranchlands around it lack people to buy tickets, so organizers are seeking ticket buyers nationwide. The goal is to improve emergency services in a fire district that is 1,000 square miles larger than the state of Delaware.
“While there’s not much population here, there’s certainly a need,” said Peg Fowler, a Harrison emergency medical technician.
Fowler, a retired teacher from Denver, said the 37-member Fire Department unsuccessfully applied for Homeland Security funds to buy a new ambulance and figures it would take “100 years” to raise the money from memorials and bake sales.
Another Harrison EMT, Elaine Doherty, suggested a lottery, saying it had worked for a hospital in New Hampshire where she had worked.
A selling point of the Harrison lottery is that ticket holders have a 1-in-300 chance of winning $10,000, better odds than most lottery or raffle drawings. The Web site set up to promote the lottery, www.onein300chance.org, reflects that sales pitch.
Fowler said a new ambulance is critical in Harrison, where the average rescue call involves about 200 miles of driving — first to ranches down rough country roads and then to and from the nearest hospitals: Chadron, Neb., 60 miles away, or Scottsbluff, Neb., 75 miles away.
“I don’t know if people realize ... how scary it is to ride in a blizzard in an ambulance that isn’t a four-wheel-drive,” she said.
The 1985 ambulance, which lacks four-wheel-drive, sometimes won’t start right away. It has overheated and broken down at least twice after delivering patients to Scottsbluff, Fowler said.
And the brakes went out once during a run to Scottsbluff, she said. The EMTs in back didn’t learn of that until the unit careened to a stop.
“Our driver, Phil Skavdahl, was an absolute master. He was using gears and the emergency brake to keep us going because we could not afford to stop because we had a badly injured patient,” Fowler said. “This is a dying ambulance.”
The department has a backup ambulance, a converted 1976 van that Fowler said is too cramped.
The use of a lottery to purchase an ambulance is unusual, judging by recent state charitable gambling records.
More than 100 volunteer fire departments sold pickle cards in the past two years to help finance operations, training courses or small pieces of equipment. Only four departments ran lotteries last year, and none raised enough money to finance an ambulance.
Steve Schatz, charitable gambling manager for the Nebraska Department of Revenue, said state laws allow churches, nonprofit groups and volunteer fire companies to run lotteries, bingo games and pickle cards to raise money.
Schatz said his department advised the Harrison volunteers that there are federal prohibitions on selling lottery tickets over the Internet.
So the lottery Web site allows people to only “reserve” tickets. They must mail a check later or wait to be contacted by a volunteer from Harrison.
Since lottery sales began May 5, Fowler said, 205 tickets have been reserved. The vast majority have been to people from Harrison or those who know someone from Harrison.
She said the goal is to sell 2,100 tickets by Aug. 3, when the lottery will be held. If all tickets are sold, there will be seven $10,000 winners — and about $135,000 left after state taxes are paid.
“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work,” Fowler said. “But we’re sure going to give it a try.”