Less than a week after St John Wakatipu took possession of three new 4WD ambulance response vehicles, two were put to use in Dunedin.
St John Central Otago territory manager Kelvin Perriman said two of the Toyota Land Cruisers were diverted to Dunedin on Wednesday afternoon to help with the response to record floods in the city, with two staff in each ambulance working through the night.
At a presentation in Queenstown yesterday, where an automated external defibrillator was given to accountancy firm Crowe Horwath, which funded one of the ambulances, Mr Perriman said this would be the first winter the new ambulances would be fully tested.
The first of its kind, a prototype, was delivered to Glenorchy about a year ago.
Since then, several improvements had been made to the three new ambulances, two of which are based in Queenstown and one in Wanaka.
They would primarily be used to go to skifields, mountain-biking tracks and other remote areas over winter, where standard ambulances sometimes struggled to access patients.
Each ambulance could carry a total of three patients - one on a stretcher and two seated, and two staff, and was fully equipped for a first-response role.
Crowe Horwath Central Otago managing principal Duncan Fea, of Queenstown, said St John was a well-deserving organisation that provided an invaluable service to residents and visitors.
