An ambulance in Washington County is going full-service, thanks to a defibrillator Alna donated after its First Responders program closed.

A defibrillator can help emergency workers in their efforts to restart a heart. When Washington County Emergency Management Agency (EMA) Director Michael Hinerman saw Alna Third Selectman Doug Baston’s email, about the one the town was looking to give away, he knew there must be ambulance services in the rural county that could use it.

That was Baston’s thinking, as well. Washington County was the first place he tried, because it is rural, Baston said Oct. 19.

Hinerman said he contacted Baston right away about the offer. “I thought it was fantastic,” Hinerman, interviewed separately, said Oct. 19.

On average, the populations in Washington County towns are about Alna’s size of 700, Hinerman said.

In an Oct. 5 email to Baston, the EMA director expresses thanks for the donation, describes it as generous and informs the selectman that the defibrillator has gone to the nonprofit Pleasant River Ambulance Service to use on one of its ambulances. The ambulance had been in limited use, on calls where regulations did not call for a defibrillator on board, Hinerman said Monday.  The addition of Alna’s defibrillator gets the ambulance up to full service, making three full-service ones for the ambulance service, he said.

The service covers four towns directly and provides backup to at least three smaller ambulance services, according to Hinerman. Attempts to speak with someone from the ambulance service Oct. 19 and 20 were not successful.

The large area the service covers, and the long drives to all the nearest hospitals, add to the importance of having multiple ambulances, Hinerman said.

In the weeks prior to the donation, Alna selectmen had multiple discussions over the defibrillator’s future. Based on information from Alna Fire Chief Mike Trask, it appeared the town could probably only get a couple hundred dollars by selling it, Baston said Monday. So board members decided to see if they could find a place where it was needed, he said.

“It’s just a good outcome all the way around,” Baston said about the equipment’s new use in Washington County.

Alna First Responders’ longtime director Marcie Lovejoy retired earlier this year; the fire department worked to find more volunteers, but had to shut down the program March 1 due to a lack of members who lived locally, officials have said.