The South Jacksonville Fire Department will soon have new medical equipment thanks to grant funding. The South Jacksonville Fire Department has been awarded a Small Equipment Grant by the Office of the State Fire Marshal for the fiscal year 2021.
South Jacksonville Fire Chief Rich Evans says he applied for the grant at the beginning of the year, and the funds will be used for updating and improving specialized medical equipment.
“We went for updating some of our EMS equipment which involves three new AED’s. We also wanted to add to our equipment a Lucas device which is an automatic CPR compression device that gives adequate compression in a cardiac event. This will ultimately increase our CPR efforts and also free up one of the rescuers to perform another task.”
The Department was awarded a grant of $20,636.00 for the equipment. Evans says requesting specific items is part of the process for this particular grant. Evans says his Department felt the specialized emergency medical care equipment fit their needs the most.
Evans says he has already spoken to their vendors for the equipment and they anticipate the pricing for the equipment will be the same as the quote he was given at the beginning of the year.
The Office of the State Fire Marshal says it could take up to 120 days for the grant to be paid out to the department. Evans says they hope to be able to order and subsequently implement the new equipment as soon as possible once the funding is available.
Village Mayor Tyson Manker said in the announcement that “Chief Evans worked really hard to make this grant happen.” Manker says he is thankful for Evans’ efforts.