City of Somerton issued the following announcement on Oct. 20.
On October 13th, the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety awarded the Somerton Cocopah Fire Department a Grant, in the amount of $1896.00, under the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST).
The SCFD will utilize this grant award to purchase additional tools to which will provide additional assistance, with their current hydraulic rescue tools, and will complete their ability to extricate trapped victims of vehicle accidents. With the tools, purchased by this grant, extrications will be much quicker.
The tools that will be purchased include a commercial grade reciprocating saw, specialty blades and a generator with which to power the saw.
Somerton Cocopah Fire Department is a unique venture, between the Cocopah Indian Tribe and the City of Somerton, via an Intergovernmental Agreement. The Somerton Cocopah Fire Department responds with a Squad, Engine, 2 Command Vehicles and 2 Ambulances to all motor vehicle collisions in their CON response area. The SCFD has continued to see an upward trend in motor vehicle collisions and fatalities. The reason for the rise in the number of accidents in a city and surrounding area as small as theirs, is attributed to the tremendous growth that has occurred in the Cities of San Luis, Arizona and San Luis Mexico. San Luis has been recognized as Arizona’s biggest population boomtown. Located on the border with Mexico, San Luis, hosts a busy port of entry, which has seen a 23.9-percent increase in population in the past five years and 104.2 percent in the last decade as a whole. The SCFD currently has a hydraulic spreader, cutter, and ram. Some of the extrications have been prolonged and would have been quicker if they had been able to use a reciprocating saw with specialty blades.
Original source can be found here.
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