Rocky Boy gets new state-of-art ambulance

Rocky Boy’s Emergency Medical Services team received word Wednesday that it will soon be the recipient of a state-of-the-art ambulance.

Mary Lynne Billy-Old Coyote, chief operating officer of the Rocky Boy Health Clinic, said the new emergency vehicle was purchased through a long-term contract with the U.S. General Service Administration, where the tribe will pay off the vehicle in installments over a long period of time.

Billy-Old Coyote said such an arrangement allows the reservation to get modernized equipment and provide quality services without having to pay all the money up front.

The tribe purchased another ambulance in February.

Billy-Old Coyote said both of the new vehicles which will be replacing old ambulances with outdated equipment will have the Rocky Boy Clinic’s logo on them.

It will join another ambulance with identical capabilities that was purchased in February.

The new vehicle will replace a 2002 former Air Force ambulance that will be returned to the GSA, once the new ambulance arrives in late April, she said.

It is now in Billings being outfitted.

She said most of the reservation’s patients are transported 103 miles to facilities in Great Falls or 30 miles away to Northern Montana Hospital in Havre.

Because of the long distances, an ambulance is often the reservation's “immediate lifeline to Havre,” Billy-Old Coyote said. The new vehicle, she said, will include undercoating that will allow the ambulance to better weather the rougher elements of a rural environment, including mud and gravel roads. Billy-Old Coyote said the new ambulance will be equipped with, among other things, a temperature-controlled drug cabinet and an IV warmer.

She said the ambulance will also have a loading system that allows patients who are overweight or in a condition where movement must be limited to be lifted into the ambulance without putting a strain on EMS staff.

The clinic appointed Amber Groves as the EMS director. Groves is a physician's assistant who just completed her EMS certification with the state of Montana. The EMS medical director slot is a new position, Billy-Old Coyote said.

Because Groves is a certified physician's assistant, the Rocky Boy EMS can now provide IVs and other medical services to patients, she said.