On Friday March 27, 2009 our new ambulance arrived from Marion, South Carolina. We will be getting it ready and putting it in service soon. The new ambulance is a 2009 Road Rescue Ultramedic, which will replace the 2003 ambulance currently in service. The Ultramedic has a Ford E450-Super Duty chassis for extended life and larger loads in heavy rescue applications. It has huge exterior compartments, spacious interior cabinets and a high Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) chassis which means exceptional cargo and stowage capacity. The 50" wide interior aisle provides extra work space around the patient. The increased 70" headroom and 168" module length provides optimum treatment environments. We are very excited about this new ambulance. We hope this ambulance provides years of dependable service to our fire district. The ambulance was purchased with funds raised through user fees and our annual fund raising dance. The fire department was able to upgrade this unit without any tax money from the City of Epworth or the Epworth Fire Rural Board. The Epworth Community Volunteer Firemen Board of Directors have established a vehicle replacement schedule that allows us to replace the ambulance and also our expedition without the use of tax money. The replacement schedule maintains optimum quality of apparatus for the department and allows us to receive top dollar for our used equipment.