Fort Cherry Ambulance to discontinue service to Bentleyville area
BENTLEYVILLE – The financially troubled Fort Cherry Ambulance Service will be pulling out of eight Washington County municipalities, forcing them to find another company to answer their emergency calls.
The McDonald-based service, which is reorganizing under federal bankruptcy it entered in December 2010, will no longer serve the Bentleyville area beginning March 5, said Paul Vahaly, a supervisor in nearby Somerset Township.
“It’s really a big problem we’re going to be having here,” said Stan Glowaski, president of Bentleyville Council. “Hopefully, we’ll solve it.”
Fort Cherry also will no longer answer ambulance calls in Fallowfield, West Pike Run and North Bethlehem townships and Deemston, Cokeburg and Ellsworth boroughs, Vahaly said.
The three Somerset supervisors opted to replace Fort Cherry with Ambulance and Chair Service in Washington and Tri-Community Ambulance Service in Monongahela. Vahaly said North Bethlehem will be served by Ambulance and Chair.
Bentleyville Council is expected to chose an ambulance service Tuesday, Glowaski said.
“We’ve asked (Fort Cherry) for an extension,” he said. “We have not heard from them.”
Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service received federal court permission in August to seize an 80-year-old fire truck from the service’s garage to satisfy more than $1.3 million in unpaid federal taxes owed by the ambulance company’s owner, Thomas Bruce.
A man who answered the phone at the service’s headquarters said no one was there Wednesday to comment on the decision to pull out of the Bentleyville area. Jeff Yates, Washington County public safety director, did not return a call seeking comment.