Peterborough Fire and Rescue ordered a new ambulance in December of 2022. The agency still doesn’t have it.

The department serves Peterborough, Dublin, Hancock, Francestown, Sharon and Temple — a population area of about 11,500 people, as of 2020 census statistics. Peterborough Fire and Rescue currently has four ambulances, ranging from five to nine years old. Three of them have more than 200,000 miles. The department plans to replace one of the older vehicles with a new Ford F550, priced at about $452,000, according to Chief Ed Walker.

Walker attributes the delay in the vehicle’s arrival to the supply-chain issues that plagued Ford and other automakers in recent years, slowing production of most light vehicles. Tight supply also drove up prices across the industry.

Neither Ford nor the regional vendor could be reached Tuesday for comment.

Peterborough Fire and Rescue paid for the ambulance out of its revolving fund, the money the department receives for its services, which used to fund all of its operations, Walker said.

He said the vehicles become less reliable as they get older and accumulate miles, and unreliable ambulances can be a big problem, especially for a service that sometimes carries patients over significant distances.

“It’s when they break down that’s an issue,” Walker said.

If one of the agency’s vehicles breaks down in Peterborough, Walker said, it’s not the end of the world because another Peterborough Fire and Rescue ambulance can quickly reach it. But when the department takes someone to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon or hospitals in Massachusetts, a breakdown can force the agency to fall back on other available local services, which may not offer as high a level of care. A couple of breakdowns outside the agency’s service area have highlighted this issue, Walker said.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ford and other automakers responded to supply-chain shortages in part by redirecting some of their usual stock of ambulance chassis to use in other vehicles with more demand, like pickup trucks, a Scripps investigation found.

Before the pandemic, Walker said, lead times for new emergency vehicles were typically about a year, and the department had often been able to purchase demo models with a lead time of four to five months. From 2020 to 2022, the cost and the lead time for those vehicles increased, Walker said. Peterborough Fire and Rescue got estimates for a new ambulance several times during that period as the agency planned for a future purchase.

Walker said Monday he still doesn’t know when the ambulance will arrive. He believes Ford is prioritizing fulfilling back orders based on the volume of the orders. Because Peterborough Fire and Rescue ordered only one vehicle, Walker said he thinks the agency is pretty far down the list.

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