The Haines Borough last month received a new ambulance, with federal and state money picking up 90 percent of the bill.

“There is grant funding to replace ambulances in the state, and I don’t know how much longer that funding is going to be available,” said fireman Al Badgley. “It turned out that Sitka had money for their ambulance, and they decided they didn’t want it this year, so it was one that was available. We only had to pay a 10 percent match on this ambulance, up to $180,000.”

He said the cost of the four-wheel drive ambulance came in just under that limit.

“We maximized the 90 percent match, because, basically, we kept buying equipment until we made that,” Badgley said. “It’s hard to pass up a 90 percent match.”

The borough will keep an ambulance from 2005, he said.

“The old ambulance that we’re replacing was 18 years old,” Badgley said. “It was bought as a demo model due to the fact that we got it right after we had a fire on our ambulance that it replaced, and we didn’t have time to research and get an ambulance that really met our needs.”

He said the new ambulance is built similarly to the borough’s six-year-old ambulance, with “almost identical” compartments.

“If you’re used to looking for something in compartment six, it’s going to be in compartment six on both ambulances,” Badgley said. “With a different ambulance, you couldn’t put the same things in there, because the compartment sizes were different.”

The borough used both ambulances for a June 25 accident involving a Suzuki motorcycle and a Mercury Sable at the Haines Highway and Second Avenue intersection that injured Stephanie Kawulych and Evan Kenchington of Edmonton, Alberta.

“One patient was able to be loaded and then transported, and the other ambulance was able to stay and wait for the second patient,” Badgley said. “We can actually carry two patients in each ambulance, but since it was so close, we decided just to send the first ambulance to the clinic and then send the second ambulance a little bit later.”

Another recent development in the department is the departure of full-time firefighter-EMT Tiffany Roles, who left for Juneau earlier this month. Roles started on the Haines job in November and previously served on fire departments in Sitka and Juneau.

Badgley said Roles likely would stay in the emergency services field.

“She’s decided to further her career and not just be a firefighter-EMT,” he said. “She wants to go to a paramedic level.”

As of this week, the firefighter-EMT position was listed as open until filled at http://www.hainesborough.us, with a starting wage of $18.81 per hour.