Friday evening during the Cushing Tiger football game, Cushing Firechief Brent Kerr finally got the call he’d been anticipating for days – the brand spanking new ambulance had arrived.
“I was hoping to have it sitting at the game tonight,” Kerr said.
Somehow it seemed appropriate the much-anticipated delivery came just hours before Kerr’s birthday, Saturday, Sept. 12.
This ambulance looks and is equipped a little differently than the ones currently in use by the Cushing Fire Department. The first and most obvious difference is its color – a bright, fire engine red.
“It hasn’t been long – in Oklahoma at least – that departments have had a choice in the color,” Captain Mike Meisenheimer told KUSH. “For a long time, all ambulances had to be white with an orange stripe. It was just a few years ago they let fire departments change the stripe to red.”
Another difference – size. Captain Meisenheimer pointed out that while the body is bigger and taller, the cab is slightly smaller.
The inside is slightly different as well. Besides that “new car smell” it has more storage, a seat that converts into a child’s car seat and a coded-entry storage for certain drugs.
“That’s probably the most notable difference,” Meisenheimer said. “Once our guys complete their paramedic training, it will be used to store drugs they’ll then be able to administer.”
Several of Cushing’s firefighters are currently enrolled in paramedic training. According to Chief Kerr, eventually the Cushing Fire Department will have 9 trained paramedics on staff.
Although the new ambulance appears ready to go, there’s still a little paperwork to do before it will be making any runs.
“Yes, the health inspector was in town Thursday to do the inspection,” Meisenheimer said, “but unfortunately the ambulance hadn’t arrived yet.”
The purchase of the new ambulance was included in the 2009-2010 City budget for the amount of $130,000. The Phoenix Group won the bid, coming in well under the proposed amount with $123,268. The Cushing Police Department is also expecting…several new police cars are due to arrive soon.
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