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ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - In Gwinnett County, EMS first responders do a thorough inspection of each ambulance in their fleet every day. It’s protocol before responding to an emergency call.

Fire Chief Frederick Cephas said it’s critical to keep his medic units in top mechanical shape, and the time has come to replace a dozen of them before they break down.

“So, what we’re in the midst of doing is replacing these vehicles, and instead of replacing them with a brand-new vehicle, we instead are doing what we call a remounting process, and that’s taking the patient compartment and putting it on a brand-new chassis,” Cephas said.

The chief said a brand-new ambulance costs about $450,000. But his plan to remount the patient compartment on a new chassis instead is a savings of about $200,000 to taxpayers per unit.

“I like that better, as long as we can save on our tax money, and they can put that somewhere a lot better, like schools or help people out, because times are tough,” Gwinnett County taxpayer Terrence Brissette said.

“It’s important that we have good health infrastructure. It’s important that people have the transportation they need for these things, and God knows that we don’t need more unnecessary government expenditure when there are reasonable answers like remounting things on a new chassis like that,” Gwinnett County taxpayer Jed Johnson said.

If you do the math, the remounting process on about a dozen ambulances will likely save taxpayers about $2.5 million, and more importantly, the county hopes will still save lives.

“I feel like this is an excellent way to keep units in service and do it at a cost-effective way,” Cephas said.