Send a Fire Truck to Cambodia
I recently joked about advertising a trailer on eBay. But what about sending a used fire truck to Cambodia? It's been done:
Two of King County Fire District No. 28's fire engines may be out-of-service here, but they are certainly not out to pasture. The 1979 Seagrave and the 1984 Mack will soon be back in the firefighting world when they arrive where they are desperately needed - in Cambodia and Columbia.
Thursday morning members of the Tukwila-based, non-profit Outreach Emergency Services Program came to haul the fully-operational trucks off to their new homes. KCFD No. 28 Fire Chief Joe Kolisch had originally hoped to get $25,000 apiece, or at least an offer, on the two engines. But after a year and a half on the market and no takers, he went looking for another option....
Collecting out-of-use fire trucks, ambulances and equipment is what Whitney, Carpenter and others do. In addition to shipping the equipment to Cambodia or Columbia, OESP sends professional volunteers to train local community members how to operate it and provide emergency medical treatment.
OESP sprang to life through the efforts of Sos Y Ouch and his nephew Vuthy Roeun, an emergency medical technician and paramedic. Both originally from Cambodia, they saw a need for emergency medical and fire care in their home country.
According to the OESP history, on a return visit, Ouch witnessed a car-pedestrian accident and saw no aid attending to the victim. He and bystanders took the victim to the nearest hospital. On the same trip, he saw first hand a fire rip through a city due to a lack of equipment and training.
Roeun asked Whitney, an assistant fire chief for the city of Milton, to help with the firefighting aspect and also solicited the help of veteran paramedic Gary Howe. In 2002 OESP became an organization.
The group just made its fourth trip to Cambodia in January. Eleven volunteers made the trip to continue emergency medical and fire safety training. Whitney said the organization doesn't just drop the equipment and run. Each delivery becomes part of a five- to six-year project to establish an emergency response system within that community....
It's not just ambulances and fire trucks. The two trucks leaving Enumclaw [Washington] also contained thousands of feet of used hose and some equipment....
For more information about the program or to watch the journey of the Plateau area's two trucks, visit the Web site at www.oesp.net.
They have a blog, too.
Comments