Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance Corps to get new radios

The Riverhead Town Board transferred $256,000 in fund balance from the Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance budget in order to buy new radios for the corps, which has had difficulty with its current radios. 

The transfer will allow for 40 new radios to be purchased, according to Councilman Tim Hubbard. 

Last month, Garrett Lake, the president of the Riverhead Volunteer Ambulance board of directors, told the Town Board that the radios don’t work in the Enterprise Park at Calverton, and have bad reception on town beaches and in Wading River, Jamesport and Manorville. Other complaints have been lodged in the past.

“This is a dire issue and it needs to be fixed,” Mr. Lake told the Town Board at a June work session Thursday.

He said the radios the ambulances have now have “zero communication” inside EPCAL and also have problems reaching areas like the outskirts of Jamesport, by the bay and the Sound and in Manorville.

The EPCAL site generates between 300 to 400 calls per year as people have been riding motorcycles there and having injuries.

“If there’s no police officer on scene, we have zero communications,” he said.