The Española Fire Department picked up a new rescue unit from Portland, Ore., arriving in Española June 28. Lt. Emery Baca and fire fighter Nick Mangas flew to Portland and drove the Dodge 3500 back, costing the city about $500 in fuel but saving three times that in shipping, according to Director of Public Safety Eric Garcia.
“The guys had a blast coming back,” Lt. Ron Padilla said Monday night, addressing the public safety committee. “They even slept in the back one night, just to try it out.”
The rescue unit is a large six-wheel vehicle that holds medical supplies, oxygen tanks, as well as a cardiac monitor, Padilla said following the public safety committee meeting. There’s room for one paramedic in the back, who sits at the head of a patient on a gurney.
Padilla showed city councilors the new vehicle, which is currently not stocked with supplies or equipment, nor registered.
“We’re trying to get one of the hospital’s old cardiac monitors,” he said. “Those go almost $35,000 new. We’ll stock it (the truck) and register it and it will be on the road in a few weeks.”
The truck cost $119,000, Padilla said. A state grant funded $80,000 of the truck’s cost. The city paid another $28,000 an $11,000 came from the wild land fire fund, Baca said Tuesday.
Mangas special ordered the truck and built it from the ground up. Padilla said the truck had all LED lights, driving the initial cost up but saving maintenance and costs in the long run. Garcia agreed with the light selection, based on his experience in paying to replace costly standard lights more often.
“You pay more up front but lights on emergency units, those strobes, go out often,” Garcia said.
Padilla pointed to more storage space gained since LED lights use much less electricity, there was no need for an extra bank of batteries to power them.
“That’s space we can use inside for medical supply storage,” Padilla said.
Padilla said he hoped to give one of the older rescue units to a fire department in need of a truck, but willing to take a used one with limited capabilities. He had a small town in Catron County in mind.
“Our old unit would be great for a small city, someone who doesn’t use them every day, several times a day,” Padilla said.