The Cookeville Fire Department wants to update its defibrillators.
Fire Chief Daryl Blair said by next year, their current defibrillators will be obsolete.
“This will make us more compatible with EMS, we work hand-in-hand with them on the medical calls and stuff,” Blair said. “This new equipment will be state of the art, it will be more comparable, comparable, and make the job a whole lot easier for our first responders here at the Cookeville Fire Department.”
Each unit costs $25,000 to $50,000 a piece. Blair said purchasing the equipment in bulk will save money in the long run. While the ticket price is expensive, he said if it saves a life it is worth it.
Purchasing the new equipment will allow data collected from defibrillators to transfer electronically to EMS. Blair said most of the time the fire department arrives at a scene before EMS does.
“What these will do with the new monitors, it will just transfer over to their machines because theirs is more updated than what ours is,” Blair said. “It’s still having to go through the old way of unhooking it, paperwork and everything. It has got computer modules built in that will just transfer right over with the apps and everything, we won’t never miss a beat.”
The project is part of the new fiscal year budget.
