The very first ambulance in Courtenay was a Model T Ford. It was actually owned by the St. Joseph’s Hospital Ladies Auxiliary. They bought it and it was kept in Sims garage across from Tulio’s, in the City parking lot there. There was a garage there called Sims garage and it burnt down in 1932 and the ambulance was in it, so Courtenay had no ambulance. I don’t know what happened when people got sick or hurt.
Then the volunteer Fire Department raised enough money to buy a 1935 Ford van, and made it into an ambulance. We ran the ambulance, the volunteer Fire Department, until 1975 when the government took it over. I knew that nurse there, there was a Casonne farm out on the headquarters road, she was Mrs. Casonne.
Lawrence Burns
