By Amanda Pinto
New Haven Register, Conn.
WESTBROOK, Conn. — The 40 volunteers who make up the Westbrook Ambulance Association have grown accustomed to certain hardships.
They have to park their emergency vehicles outside, where they are “weatherbeaten” by snow and rain, and crowd into a 30-year-old building that doesn’t have a bunk room, Chief Gregg Prevost Jr. said.
When there are breaks in emergency calls, they crash on couches, Prevost said.
The association, a private organization, needs $75,000 to finish an expansion and renovation that would improve the facility and make room for a third ambulance the group must acquire to deal with climbing call volume, he said.
“When I started here 22 years ago, we did about 200 calls a year,” Prevost said. “We do about 1,000 now.”
The $300,000 expansion is being built by Seaview Custom Homes LLC of Westbrook, and will take three to four weeks to complete, the business’s owner, Gene Jimenez, said recently. Prevost said the association used $225,000 in unused funds and garnered about $15,000 in donations.
The association has a $75,000 shortfall to make up in order to finance the expansion, Prevost said.
The addition will include six bays, which will house three ambulances, a mass casualty unit used to service Westbrook, as well as neighboring communities, and a utility vehicle. It is much needed, as the garage was built to hold “Cadillac ambulances” in the 1970s, not the much larger ambulances the association uses today, Prevost said.
Prevost will buy the third ambulance as soon as he has the garage to store it in, he said.
The expansion is vital as call volume has grown. Prevost said the association got 70 calls in April, they usually receive 40 a month.
Nine times this year, both ambulances have been responding to calls simultaneously, Prevost said. Three of those times, another call came in. The ambulance was able to turn around at the hospital and respond in two of those cases; in the third, Old Saybrook was called in to assist.
“As it gets busier and busier and call volume expands, we recognized the need for a third vehicle,” Prevost said.
The current garage will be converted into “much needed” office space, he said.
The two-floor expansion will also include storage space that may in the future be converted into a bunk room.
The town is not financing the expansion, Prevost said, and the association plans to hold a tag sale to raise funds.
A tag sale was held Sunday with another set for July 11 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. People can register to sell their items at $25 per table, which will go toward the expansion, Prevost said.
Copyright 2009 New Haven