News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The state has declined Overton County’s $325,000 Community Development Block Grant application.
County Executive Ben Danner said the funding would have purchased three new ambulances.
“I was really hoping we got that. I would have thought that we would have qualified well because every county around us, except Putnam County, doesn’t have a hospital or closed it,” Danner said. “We’re making a lot longer runs and our ambulances are getting a lot of miles on them. I’m going to meet with the state and see why we didn’t score high enough to get that grant. That would have really helped us out because we’re making some really long runs now that the hospitals have closed.”
The new vehicles would replace some high-mileage ambulances and others that have experienced mechanical problems.
“We’ve had some problems with the turbos going down on the Fords,” Danner said. “We have had some other counties help us out when we’ve had trucks go down. We were really hoping we would get those new ones so we wouldn’t have to worry when we have truck go down.”
Danner said the county will explore different options for purchasing the vehicles after the state denied its grant application.
“Well, we had money in the budget for a match on the grant,” Danner said. “We’ll probably go ahead and try to use that to buy one ambulance. We won’t be able to buy three, but next year we’ll look again and see what we can do.”
