MOHAVE VALLEY – The Mohave Valley Fire Department has recently added two new pieces of equipment that they feel elevates their ability to service the public. First on the scene was a fire-rescue boat and now a new ambulance. Both acquisitions are state of the art, according to a department spokesperson.
Fire Engineer Michael Kavanagh, in speaking about both additions, used words like “safety” and “efficiency” frequently.
“The ambulance is on an F-5-54 chassis that’s four wheel drive, so that allows us to get up to our farthest east location, which would be Oatman. It’s on a short wheel base so it can turn around in a lot of the narrow driveways up there in Oatman. Our recent events that we’ve just had with the rains that hit, it allows us to have the four-wheel drive capability so if we do need to go out in inclement weather, we are safer which translates over to if we have a patient on board, it’s safer for them to be transported to the hospital.”
The new ambulance is also equipped with an impressive CPR machine, Kavanagh explains.
“It’s a machine that straps around your chest, and it has a piston that comes down onto the center of your chest that we set up and it does CPR for us. And it keeps a consistent rate at a consistent depth.”
Not only that, the CPR machine lessens overall response time. It requires fewer emergency personnel on scene to spell each other in response to fatigue.
Kavanagh said, “You’d have five or six people on scene for a CPR call and now that you have this machine, it takes up one of those spots, so now you can just show up with your ambulance crew and get 99% of it done.”
Turning attention to the new fire-rescue boat, Kavanagh pointed to its usefulness, not only on the water but along the shoreline as well.
“It facilitates water rescues after boat accidents. On the fire side of it, it does 250 gallons a minute to pump water out of the river. It has a deck cannon on it. It can reach up onto the shore to help put out the fire, as well as on the water.”
Kavanagh also pointed out, the specially designed water level decks fore and aft on the boat are particularly effective for boat accident operations. The fire-rescue boat is housed at the Avi lagoon as part of Station 844, a location that is especially relevant during high volume jet ski times on the river.
In all, Kavanagh stated the citizens and visitors to the Mohave Valley Fire Department’s service area are going to be better tended than before with the new equipment recently acquired.
