A Winslow Fire Department ambulance is moved Jan. 10, 2023, at the town’s fire station at 114 Benton Ave. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel file

WINSLOW — Fairfield’s primary rescue truck broke down in October, leaving the town in a scramble to provide local emergency medical services.

Winslow’s town manager offered to loan Fairfield an ambulance that was sitting unused, but a legal misinterpretation of ambulance transport licensing shut down the deal.

The situation calls into question the efficacy of central Maine’s ambulance services, and the role of political officials that oversee them.

Even communities with their own independent emergency medical services must rely on an increasingly unreliable web of mutual aid as equipment ages and staffing shortages spread.

On Oct. 30, the town of Fairfield held an emergency meeting to discuss the failure of Med-One’s engine. Med-One, Fairfield’s aging medical truck that carries medical supplies, cardiac monitors, IVs and other equipment, is generally the first to respond to calls, providing basic or paramedic services, while waiting for emergency medical services, or EMS, transport provider Delta Ambulance to arrive, if transportation to a hospital is needed.

Fairfield has no ambulance or transport license of its own, meaning it would be unable to transport patients, even if it had the proper equipment and vehicles.

The town’s backup emergency vehicles include Engine 3, a fire rescue pumper truck, and Chief Travis Leary’s SUV, a vehicle with such high mileage that it was retired from police service. Leary’s SUV is also too small to fit an EMS backboard, according to Fairfield Town Manager Michelle Flewelling.

With Med-One out of commission, both vehicles have been forced to go on daily EMS calls for the past month, creating extra wear and tear and stretching departments’ abilities to provide medical services.

At the Oct. 30 meeting, the council voted to install a brand-new motor and other new parts for Med-One. They also voted to enter into negotiations for purchasing their own used ambulance, with Flewelling clarifying that this does not imply that Fairfield would establish a transport service.

But with no firm timeline for repairs to Med-One, inadequate backup vehicles and ambulance negotiations up in the air, the town needed a quicker solution.

The town of Winslow seemed to have it. Flewelling said Fairfield officials reached out to Winslow about possibly borrowing its third ambulance, which sits unused, until Med-One is back in service.

“We knew it was a vehicle they weren’t using, and thought maybe we could borrow it just for a short period of time while we reviewed our options and got our vehicle fixed,” Flewelling said.

They thought wrong.

WINSLOW’S OFFER

Across the river, the town of Winslow runs its own EMS service, with the three ambulances. At the Oct. 24 meeting of the Winslow Town Council, officials discussed Fairfield’s request to borrow Winslow’s unused ambulance.

Town Manager Ella Bowman noted that Fairfield had loaned Winslow a tanker fire truck in a similar situation about 15 years ago. She said “it would be a mistake” to leave Winslow’s third ambulance sitting unused while Fairfield needs it.

“They have asked the town of Winslow to be able to use one of our ambulances to get them through this time period,” Bowman said. “I haven’t heard a time frame on it, but my guess is it would take up to a month.”

Along with Leonard Macdaid, Winslow’s public safety director, and Deputy Chief Michael Murphy of the Winslow Fire Department, Bowman met with Flewelling and Leary, and all parties agreed it was a suitable solution to Fairfield’s problem. Once it was brought to Town Council, though, the proposal received instant criticism.

Capt. Waylon Capp of the Winslow Fire Department closes the side door of Winslow Medic 7-1 on Jan. 10, 2023, at the town’s fire station at 114 Benton Ave. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel file

Councilors Fran Hudson and Mike Joseph raised concerns about the ambulance being used for transporting patients, and the additional wear and tear that sending the truck outside of Winslow could cause, noting the ambulance’s age.

Joseph said Winslow’s ambulance service is not profitable, and suggested the vehicle be used in town before being sent elsewhere, a change Hudson said has been under consideration for some time.

“If we lend them an ambulance that we’ve already got plans for using, they’re going to be driving 911, red lights and sirens, to multiple calls a day. That’s a lot of wear and tear on the ambulance itself,” Hudson said. “God forbid something happens to it, the insurance isn’t going to buy you a new one because it’s an older one.”

Hudson said Fairfield does not have “dire need” of the ambulance, because the town is using Leary’s SUV for emergency calls. Town councilors also questioned the legality of lending the ambulance to Fairfield, claiming that it is licensed as a transport vehicle, not a rescue vehicle.

“Our ambulances are licensed to be a transporting ambulance, which means you are licensed at the level to pick them up and bring them to the hospital. You get a different license to do a rescue call,” Hudson said.

“They think they could use our ambulance because it’s already licensed as a transporting ambulance. Unless you get rid of our license and put a new license on it as ‘rescue only,’ you might want to look into that.”

Claims like that are how misinformation spreads.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN AND COUNCILOR CONFUSION

Transport licenses are registered to the agency, not the vehicle. A nontransporting service can only have nontransporting EMS vehicles licensed to it, said Melissa Adams, licensing agent with Maine EMS.

Fairfield does not have a transport license, which means it is unable to use any vehicle for transporting patients, even if a vehicle was used previously by another department for that purpose, Flewelling said.

“Just because we had an ambulance at our disposal to respond to emergency calls does not inherently give us the authority to transport individuals,” Flewelling said.

Fairfield would have used Winslow’s ambulance the same way it had used Engine 3 and Leary’s SUV, but without some of the added complications of age and size.

After the initial meeting with Bowman and other officials, everyone had been on the same page, Flewelling said.

“I had spoke with Ella, and she was aware that there was no way that we were going to do transport,” Flewelling said. “Deputy Chief Murphy used to work for Fairfield fire for a very long time, prior to becoming the deputy chief. He also knew that there was no way we could do transport.

“When we met with Ella, nobody ever thought that anybody would think we would do transport, because we understand how licensure works.”

Bowman confirmed this understanding at the Oct. 24 meeting of the Winslow Town Council. Councilors, including Hudson and Joseph, eventually said they would support loaning Fairfield the ambulance for 30 days, but postponed a vote on the topic over the same licensing concerns that Flewelling, Bowman and fire officials say do not apply.

“I did have an in-depth conversation with Deputy Fire Chief Murphy, and he did not mention any of the complications that you’re mentioning,” Bowman said. “He’s in full support of helping them out.”

NEIGHBOR AGAINST NEIGHBOR

It was only when Flewelling went back and watched the Winslow Town Council meeting that she understood the scope of the misinformation.

“I thought it was odd that Winslow councilors would state the fact that ‘Fairfield staff would just start transporting’ because we had an ambulance, and their concerns about our inability to know what the transportation licensing situation was and all of that,” Flewelling said.

At that point, Flewelling also received word that Med-One repairs had been scheduled to begin Nov. 19. It was no longer worth the trouble to borrow Winslow’s ambulance, Flewelling said.

“So because of all of it, and also knowing that our vehicle was going to be fixed sooner than we initially realized, we decided that working with the town of Winslow just was not in our best interest,” Flewelling said.

Med-One was put back into service Nov. 22. While the problem has been fixed for the short term, the interaction between the two towns has revealed distrust where there was once solidarity, reliance and mutual aid.

“I’m not sure where the confusion came from,” Flewelling said.