Picture Tolland: An Old Ambulance

TOLLAND, CT — The latest installment of the picture Tolland series takes us back more than there decades to one of Tolland’s former ambulances.

It's old Rescue 540, shown in front of the Tolland Volunteer Ambulance Association garage during the winter of 1983.

According to the Tolland Fire Department archives, the ambulance was a 1981 Chevrolet that served the town from 1981 until 1988.

In 1988, while transporting a patient to Manchester Hospital, this ambulance caught on fire on Interstate-84 in Manchester.

No one was injured.

A new 1988 Ford Mobile Medical Ambulance was delivered in the fall of 1988 and became the new Rescue 540.

The ambulance patient compartment box was taken off of the burned 1981 Chevy chassis and was remounted onto a new 1989 Ford chassis and was renamed Rescue 640 to become Tolland's second ambulance.

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Picture Tolland is a periodic series that examines images of the town, past and present.