BRADENTON, Fla. — The sirens don’t stop along the streets in Bradenton.
“The growth is continuing there,” said Clinton Faulkner, president of the Manatee County EMS union.
More growth means more need. The county has focused efforts over the past couple of years on filling paramedic openings, but now another problem has sounded the alarm.
“While we've been approved for new positions, new stations, things like that, the simple fact is we just don't have ambulances to put people in. We have the people, we just don't have the physical ambulances,” Faulkner said.
He says the county has 21 ambulances on order. Some of the orders date back to 2021.
“Right now, the manufacturing timeline is about 30 months for an ambulance,” said James Crutchfield, Deputy Director of Public Safety for Manatee County. ”So we're buying ambulances 3-4-5 years into the future.”
And it’s not just them. 10 investigates uncovering this is a nationwide issue, an ambulance shortage is impacting first responders across the country.
“It's taking up to two years or more right now to get this vehicle. Prior to the pandemic, once you got the order in it would be three months to 120 days,” said Mark Postma, administrator for the Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services-Ground Vehicle Standards.
He says the organization has been closely monitoring this situation at a national level.
“The industry has been aware of since the end of the pandemic,” Postma said.
He says it’s all because of a labor shortage at the manufacturers.
“These vehicles normally have a life of about five years, and we have to extend that life on these vehicles and that will cause more maintenance, and in some cases, breakdowns could possibly occur,” Postma said.
That he says is the biggest complaint he’s hearing about from communities nationwide.
Even in Bradenton, ambulances need repair, but the community is still in need of help.
“We've had to kind of work out agreements with other areas where if we need a spare ambulance. We can actually rent an ambulance if we run out of physical ambulances to keep our current fleet up,” Faulkner said.
"Manatee County EMS exclusively owns and operates the ambulances used to provide care to the citizens and visitors of the county. While we do not rent ambulances for these purposes, we have inter-local agreements with other municipalities and private companies to collaborate on patient transportation when needed," a Manatee County spokesperson told 10 Investigates.
The county commission is aware of the backlog and has already approved ambulance orders that they’ll need for the future so they can get their orders on the list, which is what the Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services is encouraging all communities to do.
They say if you know you’re going to need new ambulances in a year or two, don’t wait, get on the list now.