Crime & Safety

Fire Investigators Get New Set of Wheels [PHOTOS]

City's EMS provider donates retired ambulance to Fire Department.

The Fire Department's fire investigation team has a new set of wheels thanks to .

The company, which provides the city's EMS services, donated an ambulance that was being taken out of active service to the department last June. The vehicle was fitted out and put in operation by fire investigators by September.

The official recognition of the gift was made Wednesday afternoon, however, at with fire officials, Mayor Ted Bettencourt and representatives from Atlantic and Cataldo Ambulance Service -- Atlantic is a division of Cataldo.

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Robert Dionne, the business development director for Atlantic, said the useful life of an ambulance, which sits on the frame of a heavy-duty pickup truck, is about five years and 150,000 miles. In this case, the vehicle is from 2003 and had fewer miles on it, replacing the department's existing truck, which was a 1999 model.

Cataldo made a similar donation to the city of Newton recently.

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While some communities use these vehicles as fire/rescue units to carry extraction equipment (the Jaws of Life) and other tools needed at the scene of a fire or emergency situation, this vehicle is just for the use of fire investigators as a mobile office.

Capts. David Sampson and Joe DiFranco, who form that team along with Firefighter Christopher Dowling, said the vehicle is used to interview victims at the scene, carry some tools and equipment and otherwise facilitate their efforts to do the job as a team.

Fire Chief Steven Pasdon thanked Atlantic for the gift, which he said would have otherwise cost around $50,000 for that vehicle and the equipment it contained, and was just the latest act of goodwill by the EMS provider. He said the department's truck before this had met the end of its useful life and was becoming too expensive to fix.

Atlantic also made some smaller repairs to the truck before turning it over to the department.

Pasdon said the company has been a "wonderful" partner with the Fire Department since taking over the city's contract in 2008.

Bettencourt offered similar remarks, saying the company is "greatly appreciated" in the city for its work and community involvement. Bettencourt and school officials also accepted another donation -- a defibrillator for the high school athletic department -- from Atlantic shortly afterward in a brief ceremony at .


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