A donation from Windham Hospital is helping the Scotland Fire Department save lives.
The hospital has donated one of its retired Public Safety vehicles to the Scotland Volunteer Fire Department to be used for firefighter training. The gift was the idea of Windham Public Safety Officer Jim Meikle who also serves as a captain on the Scotland Volunteer Fire Department
“I approached Chris Bibeau [manager of Plant Operations at Windham] after noticing it parked in the back lot for quite a while. I said, ‘what do you think about donating it the fire department?’ He thought it was a great idea. And here we are.”
The 2006 Dodge Caravan will be used for vehicle extrication and fire training, according to Scotland Volunteer Fire Department Assistant Chief Juan Sanchez who also works as a public safety officer at Windham Hospital.
“We’ll get a lot of use out of this for vehicle extrication and stabilization training which teaches firefighters how to stabilize a vehicle so it doesn’t roll away when we’re working on it,” said Sanchez. “We should easily get five solid drills out of it before we get to the point where we burn it for fire training. This will be great especially for our newer members.”
Public Safety Officers at Windham are now patrolling using the former paramedic vehicles after the paramedic team was able to purchase two brand new SUVs in 2018 thanks in part to a $47,000 donation from the Jeffrey P. Ossen Family Foundation.
“If this will help save just one life it’s well worth it,” said Bibeau.