Peoria's Fire Department wants to go beyond just fighting fires by being able to provide advanced medical help as first responders.
"If we arrive first and somebody say is having a heart attack, we're able to go ahead and get an IV started, give medication if needed," Local 50 Union President Rick Waldron said.
It's called an ALS equipped engine or truck. Waldron said the Peoria Fire Department has three ALS engines right now. They want to add another one having just put in an application for Engine 19 Tuesday, but it's taken three months just to get to this point.
Waldron said he’s not sure what the hold up.
Having firefighters able to provide these services means double the amount of paramedics showing up at a scene with Advanced Medical Transport responding, too.
"It's sometimes a crap-shoot whether Advance Medical Transport arrives first or us. The idea is just as long as we get a medic their immediately, that's all we care," Waldron said.
We reached out to AMT. They declined to comment because this process is still at the very beginning. But this department has been working on getting these upgrades for nearly a decade having equipped their first engine eight years ago.
"We have the medics to do this. We have the medics to do a lot more ALS engines and trucks, and that's our goal," Waldron said.