Habersham County soon will be safer for those needing medical attention, thanks to two Assistance to Firefighters Grants that will help with medical equipment and a new ambulance.
One of the key parts of the grant is the purchase of Lund University Cardiopulmonary Assist System (LUCAS) CPR devices that will be placed at stations around the county.
Habersham County Emergency Services Chief Jeff Adams says the automated CPR devices provide better and more consistent compressions that do not degrade as they would if performed manually by medical personnel.
The county will pay a $45,000 match of the total $450,000 AFG Grants received this year.
“This is two of the four AFG Grants we applied for last year or the beginning of this year, and $210,000 of it goes to LUCAS devices and then $240,000 goes toward a new med unit,” Adams said. “The LUCAS device, that’ll put 14 total CPR machines throughout the county. Some of the ones we're getting we're going to donate to the city departments so they can use those as well and provide the response and the cardiac care for these patients.”
But Adams said the LUCAS CPR devices will not be placed on ambulances, where most people might expect to find them. Instead, they will be carried on county and city fire trucks that respond to medical calls.
“What we're going to do is we're going to put these LUCAS devices on the engines because the engines are going to be responding to every call,” Adams said. “We'll also have one on the captain, one on the battalion chief. Baldwin already has one. Cornelia will get one. Clarkesville will get one. Demorest will get one and Tallulah Falls will get one. The mentality behind it is kind of the ambulances end up down to Gainesville a lot and we don't need the LUCAS on an ambulance that's in Gainesville. We need the LUCAS on the first responding unit.”
Adams said the new ambulance, that likely will take a year to 18 months to receive, will complement the county’s updated fleet and allow most of the $240,000 in local funds that would have been spent on a new ambulance to be used for other departmental needs.
“We have been blessed this year with med units and it's a lot of money and it's money that that we can use elsewhere in our budget and help to extend the life of the fleet but it's $240,000 for a med unit,” Adams said. “And we're looking at the type med units that we've been getting that are produced out in Texas. They are Frazier Ambulances and right now we're just in the discussions as to what size a much because some of the bigger ambulances are tough to get in some of the places and so we really want to get the size med unit that the is going to make the crew’s life the best and right now they're liking those smaller trucks that can get in into those smaller areas, tighter areas.”
