NEWBURYPORT — Months after donating the same life-saving device to the Salisbury Fire Department, Pridestar Trinity EMS on Thursday presented the Newburyport Fire Department with its own $20,000 LUCAS Chest Compression machine.
“We’re really excited to have it. It’s going to be a good part of our arsenal for responding to medicals. It’s very beneficial. Looking forward to putting it on the trucks pretty quickly once we get trained on it,” Newburyport Fire Chief Stephen Bradbury III said, adding training should take a few weeks.
Pridestar Trinity EMS staff arrived at the Greenleaf Street headquarters around 1 p.m. to present the device and provide a brief demonstration on how it worked.
Speaking on behalf of Pridestar owner and Plum Island resident David Daly, who had to bow out at the last minute, Senior Vice President of Public Relations Christopher Dick said Daly wanted to help out the area he lives in.
“We worked out a good deal with LUCAS and so we wanted to help you, wanted to help Salisbury, wanted to help the residents,” Dick said, addressing firefighters.
A donation to the Salisbury Fire Department was accepted by the Board of Selectmen during its Jan. 26 meeting.
Bradbury said they were approached about the same time as Salisbury received its LUCAS machine, and were waiting for City Council approval of the donation which they received on March 10.
“It’s going to take a lot of pressure off our guys when it’s performing chest compressions,” Bradbury said.
Salisbury Chief Scott Carrigan said the device has worked “great” for his department.
“We’ve used it, I think on a couple of occasions since we’ve had it. It’s definitely been a valuable piece of equipment, a valuable addition to what we have,” Carrigan said.
Bradbury said his department has been lucky recently to receive a variety of donations from the local businesses.
“Strem Chemical has also been very nice to us, donating stuff to us over the years and most recently the Newburyport Area Industrial Park donated a skid unit for our new UTV, which we just put in service yesterday,” Bradbury said, referring to a utility task vehicle.