The truck body is a Ford F550 and the “box” is a 2017 Lifeline Ambulance. Corps president John Miscioscia said there are a number of new features compared to the 2009 model this ambulance replaces.

“It has a liquid spring suspension that is much smoother than the air ride,” he said. It should also be more reliable.

There are three-point seat belts on the bench inside, rails painted yellow for visibility, and room for five people. One of the seats has a built-in car seat for children. If needed, in addition to one person on the stretcher, another person may be taken to the hospital lying down on the bench.

Dallas police said a 19-year-old man hopped into a running Allegiance Ambulance parked outside the hospital at about 11:55 a.m. and drove away. 

Not long after the theft Dallas police were called and located the ambulance. 

Officers followed the driver to NorthPark Center, a little more than five miles from the hospital, where a "high-risk traffic stop" was conducted near a parking garage on the northeast side of the shopping center. 

The department is looking at trucks that would have ladders of 100 to 110 feet, about 25 to 35 feet longer than any of the three it has right now, he said.

The desire for a bigger truck is at least in part driven by the building boom in Quincy. In the next few months, work is planned to begin in Quincy Center on the 15-story Chestnut Place, which will be the tallest building in Quincy. The building will only be a couple of stories taller than several the other buildings, so it won’t be a drastic change, but the city hopes to use this truck for the next couple of decades, so it should be able to handle whatever pops up during that time, Barron said.

“We use these trucks for many years,” he said.

The chief said the department is considering the big new ladder truck being what’s called a tiller truck, which is a bit more maneuverable. That’s a long dual-chassis apparatus that needs a second driver steering at the back of the rig, controlling the back half that can swing independently of the front as the truck drives.

Each new tractor drawn aerial (TDA) fire truck is over 60 feet long, yet considerably more maneuverable than the department’s other trucks and engines. This maneuverability is possible because the trucks have steerable rear axles.

“It’s versatile in any of the tight turn-arounds. Business parks,  a lot of apartments have really narrow entry and egress. Normally, a fire apparatus struggles to get in position for an emergency scene and might have limited capability because of that. With these new trucks, we can get anywhere. Anywhere that a small ambulance can get, we can get in this,” said Matthew McFarland, Unified Fire Authority spokesman.

The increased maneuverability also allows the trucks to:

• enter and exit cul-de-sacs without reversing or making multi-point turns
• drive in two lanes of traffic at once, with the cab in one lane and the rear in another
• parallel park by “crabbing” (moving sideways)

Each truck has a 100-foot ladder on a turntable which can be controlled remotely, allowing the engineer to position the ladder from a clear vantage point.

Duncan's assistant fire chief said the new truck will replace the that one and has more safety features to better equip not just the drivers of the truck but other firefighters.  

"We're hoping that this will be a more reliable truck,” said Rob Loafman, Assistant Fire Chief. Loafman said the department hasn't purchased a truck since 2011. Besides allowing them to carry the usual things like water, pump and ladders, it will also have added safety features the old truck didn't have, like back view camera systems that help the driver and inside systems like seatbelt detection. "It's a full complement for firefighting,” said Loafman. He said the department had been planning to purchase a new truck and had room for it in their budget.