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$235K FEMA grant helps Sycamore Fire Department get new stretchers

By Camden Lazenby
A Sycamore Fire Department ambulance pulls up to the new entryway to the emergency room Monday, March 28, 2022, at Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital. The second phase of the three-phase renovation project was recently completed in the ER at the facility.

March 28, 2022 Shaw Local file photo - A Sycamore Fire Department ambulance pulls up to the new entryway to the emergency room at Northwestern Medicine Kishwaukee Hospital. The hospital recently identified areas of need in the community, including access to healthcare, resources for mental health and substance use disorders and chronic disease. Plans to address the needs will rollout over three years beginning in 2022. (Mark Busch - mbusch@shawmedia.com/Mark Busch - mbusch@shawmedia.co)

SYCAMORE – The Sycamore Fire Department will replace the stretchers and loading systems on its four ambulances after it was awarded $235,598 through the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant program.

“This is something they have been wanting to get for a very long time,” said Michael Hall, the city manager of the city of Sycamore.

The replacement stretchers and the installation of the new stretcher loading system is estimated to cost $247,378 and the grant will cover about 95% of that total. The city is responsible for the remaining $11,779 for the new equipment. Hall said that’s something the city budgeted for when the application for the grant was submitted last year.

“We knew how much the estimated cost was going to be for those powered stretchers, and we knew what our portion was going to be – five percent of that,” said Hall.

A news release from the Sycamore Fire Department said the department is “extremely excited to receive this grant award which will be a huge help in reducing the risk of personnel injury during the movement of patients in and out of the ambulance.”

The release states the stretchers currently used are manual, meaning Sycamore fire and rescue personnel have to lift the stretcher, and patient, into the ambulance by hand.

“These will be battery powered stretchers, so huge because most ambulances have these powered stretchers because it saves on helping and lifting and workers comp and all that,” said Hall.

During fiscal year 2021, the Sycamore Fire Department responded to 2,515 requests for emergency medical services and transported individuals with an ambulance stretcher to the hospital 1,510 times.

“From the firefighters themselves, I mean, a lot of times it’s very heavy to lift people up,” said Hall. “And getting them in there, manually doing it, it’s hard on a person’s back doing that. So having this powered is going to save a lot of that sort of stuff. So workers’ comp and getting people into the ambulance faster and it’s going to be great for them.”

According to FEMA, the Assistance to Firefighters Grant program has awarded $95.6 million to 646 departments and agencies in 2021 fiscal year. The DeKalb Fire Department also received a grant through the program for $251,008 last year, and the Genoa-Kingston Fire Protection District was awarded $25,000 in January of 2021 through the same federal program.

“We are confident that this new initiative of the new powered stretchers and loading systems will minimize the risk of injury to our emergency medical service personnel and to the patient loaded onto the stretcher,” said fire officials in the release.

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