by George Gramlich

A little investigative work proved to be a gold mine for our Coroner’s Office and Custer County. Recently, our Coroner, Brad Baltzly, was looking around for a power stretcher that would allow the Coroner’s Office to move bodies via a stretcher with wheels rather than with body bags. These mechanical stretchers have wheels so they can be moved easily and also have retractable legs allowing for easy delivery of the stretcher with the body into the transport vehicle (a pick up truck). The problem is that these powered stretchers are very, very expensive and the lowest quote Brad got was around $48,000. At the last Board of County Commissioners meeting in Wetmore, Brad reviewed the status with the commissioners.
Now, a few weeks later, we received this email from Brad the other day and it was some real good news:
“At the commissioners meeting in Wetmore, Commissioner Day advised me that he had spoken with the fire chief in Florence
and was told they had recently updated all their
stretchers in their ambulances in Florence. As you know, the Coroners Office here has been operating without the luxury of having a stretcher of any kind. I immediately contacted Bill Ritter, chief of Florence Fire and ambulance. He told me they had updated their equipment and I explained our lack of. He was kind enough to offer me, free of charge, two standard stretchers and one power stretcher. They are older models and the power stretcher was not operational, but with a little work I was able to make it functional. It’s now working well and the Custer County Coroner’s Office is now much better equipped than before. I would like to publicly thank Chief Ritter for his generosity and I will be personally sending him a thank you letter. I also want to thank all our community members who were willing to support my efforts to get new equipment for my office.

Sincerely, Brad Baltzly Custer County Coroner

Brad saved the county $48,000. Good job, sir.