At least 15 Upper Cumberland rescue squads will share in a $5 million state grant to purchase life-saving equipment and improve emergency response times.
Rickman Volunteer Fire Department Chief William Curd said his department is receiving just over $65,000 from the Tennessee State Fire Marshal’s office allocation. The funding will allow the department to purchase cordless extrication tools to remove trapped individuals from wrecked vehicles without waiting for an out-of-county unit to arrive.
“You’ve got to have the tools and the funding and if you don’t have it, I mean it’s, it’s too dangerous for people to try to come in and go into a wreck or a house fire or whatever. If you don’t have the tools to keep you safe,” Curd said.
Clay County Volunteer Rescue Squad Captain Chris White said his department expects to receive roughly $92,000. The funds will outfit two trucks with new extrication tools, airbags, wheel chocks, and thicker turnout gear that resists tearing.
“It’s going to help us with new extrication tools, more equipment, new equipment goes toward putting on our truck,” White said.
Curd said the new cordless spreaders and cutters for Rickman will eliminate the need for separate power and hydraulic units. White said rural departments often struggle to acquire this specialized equipment because representatives from out-of-state companies rarely travel to fit members in person.
“Right now with Overton County, they’ve got one, one vehicle in the county that goes to extrication calls, when there’s a wreck they send that one truck out, and where we’re getting some extrication gear and already got the training for it, we’ll be able to go right to it and not have to wait, like they’re coming from town and if it’s right there in our area, I mean we can be there in three to five minutes,” Curd said. “So that’s going to cut response times down to accidents, get people out of wrecks faster.”
Curd said the secondary challenge facing rural emergency response is a lack of personnel to operate the new tools. The younger crowd does not seem as interested in volunteering as older generations were in years past.
“If we can just get it out to the public to let ’em know hey we’re in necessity for us to be there, I mean everybody’s going to come to a time that they’re going to need something, and if we don’t get a few more people interested in it and get ’em sort of trained and kind of know what’s going on, I’m afraid we’re going to run out of people,” Curd said.
Curd said the department has started a new program using signs to recruit more volunteers from the community.
Other rescue squads in the Upper Cumberland to receive grants include Overton County Ambulance Service, Cumberland County Emergency And Rescue Squad, Fentress County Volunteer Rescue Squad, Cookeville Fire Department, McMinnville Fire Department, Jackson County Rescue Squad, North End Volunteer Fire Department, Overton County Rescue Squad, Piney Flats VFD, Warren County Emergency And Rescue Squad, Putnam County Rescue Squad, Sparta-White County Volunteer Rescue Squad, Woodbury Fire And Rescue Department, Warren County EMS-Rescue, and Warren County Emergency and Rescue Squad.