HOUSTON – The Houston Fire Department's ambulance fleet is in "deplorable" condition according to the president of the Houston Professional Firefighters Association.
Two separate ambulances broke down recently with patients inside.
"Then on Friday we ran out of what are called advanced life support units and those medic units are in case a citizen has a serious medical condition that requires advanced life support," Patrick Lancton, HPFFA president, said.
Neither of the recent breakdowns, last week and the week prior, lead to catastrophic results for the patient, but Lancton and others have said the condition of the ambulance fleet is an emergency in itself.
A 2016 study, commissioned by the city of Houston, found the department is 70 ambulances short of being able to attain the national response time standard of 90 percent of arrival times falling within eight minutes.
Administrators said Monday that the ambulance fleet did not have serious issues, but heavy call volume days do leave crews and equipment depleted.
Last Friday was just such a day, according to the HFD's chief of operations.
"Your call volume can easily outrun your actual fleet, so the fleet's up to par, the call volume is pretty much high. To answer your question we were over a 1,000 runs that day," Assistant Chief Herbert Griffin said.
