LifeFlight acquires Auburn building as part of ground transport expansion

A concrete block building sits next to a lawn and sign.

Photo / Courtesy LifeFlight of Maine The 2,480-square-foot facility at 215 Rodman Road in Auburn will house LifeFlight of Maine’s Lewiston/Auburn-based ground ambulance service.

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By Laurie Schreiber

LifeFlight of Maine’s plan to expand its critical care ground transport program includes the acquisition of an industrial building in Auburn.

LifeFlight of Maine LLC bought 215 Rodman Road from Androscoggin United Ambulance Inc. for $475,000.

Chris Romano and Chris Paszyc of the Boulos Co. brokered the deal.

The 2,480-square-foot facility will house the organization’s Lewiston/Auburn-based ground ambulance service.

LifeFlight, the state's only air ambulance service, instituted a ground transport program about 20 years ago, said Bill Cyr, the nonprofit’s COO who is spearheading the expansion.

About 15% of LifeFlight’s transports are on the ground, mostly due to weather issues or lack of available aircraft, he said.

Photo / Courtesy LifeFlight of Maine

LifeFlight of Maine is expanding its critical care ground transport program.

Each LifeFlight vehicle, both land and air, acts as a functioning mobile intensive care unit and is equipped with a pharmacy, blood and equipment, including a portable laboratory, ventilator, ultrasound and other medical tools not readily available at many rural hospitals.

Three new ambulances

Since the program’s start, the organization has relied on outside emergency medical service departments to provide an ambulance and driver to pick up LifeFlight’s crew and take them where they need to go.

In the last few years, it’s become more difficult to find EMS partners willing to provide the service, he said. Part of that is because the service takes the resource out of local communities, sometimes for hours, depending on how far LifeFlight needs to travel.

“We don’t want to compete with the local agencies or take them out of their town or region,” Cyr said.

LifeFlight began planning for a program expansion that includes establishing an ambulance, along with three to four emergency medical technicians who are also the emergency vehicle operators, at each of the organization’s three bases, in Sanford, Lewiston/Auburn and Bangor.

The expansion began almost a year ago in Bangor, where the base now has an ambulance purchased about a year ago. Earlier this year, the Sanford base leased a second ambulance from a Massachusetts dealer.

LifeFlight also ordered three new ambulances from manufacturer Life Line Emergency Vehicles in Sumner, Iowa.

The three specialty critical care ambulances are basically mobile intensive care units, said Cyr. Each comes with a generator, inverter power, redundant systems, an auxiliary heating and air conditioning system, safety harness seating, a durable structural cage and high-tech medical and communications equipment.

The cabs are much larger than typical ambulances in order to accommodate a crew of at least three, including the emergency vehicle operator plus health care personnel.

Typical ambulances have a driver and EMT, said Cyr.

Designed for safety

“We always have three at a minimum and sometimes four, because sometimes our transports are very long,” he said. “The vehicles are all designed around safety for our crew and patients. Our nurses and paramedics can be in a seat, and be able to tend to patient and to the equipment and not have to get out of their seatbelts.”

The organization received $1.9 million in Congressionally designated funds last year to cover the purchase of the three ambulances plus all of the equipment and supplies.

It’s expected the first will arrive by early December, to be put in service by early January. All of the three new ambulances could be in place by mid-summer 2025.

The plan includes hiring another EMT.

The Auburn acquisition is the last piece in the program’s expansion.

“We can house up to two ambulances in that building,” said Cyr. “We’re also using that facility for office space and as our central warehouse for our disposable medical equipment.”

Up to now, the Lewiston/Auburn base contracted with United Ambulance Service for an ambulance and driver to pick up LifeFlight’s crew and equipment based at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston.

United Ambulance, which has its main campus in Lewiston, is jointly owned by Central Maine Medical Center and St. Mary's Regional Medical Center and has been serving Androscoggin County since 1981, according to its website.

Initially, LifeFlight approached United Ambulance about leasing one of the bays at the 215 Rodman Road facility.

Then LifeFlight learned that United Ambulance was putting its Auburn property up for sale.

“So we went into negotiations with them,” said Cyr.

The purchase was financed with a bank loan.

The building was already an ambulance facility, so little in the way of fit-up is needed, aside from some electrical work.

The 215 Rodman Road location will house one of the new ambulances plus the one purchased last year, which will be used as a spare when one of the front line ambulances requires maintenance.