Broward Health, Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue welcome new ambulance
Key Points(5)
- Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue has added a new ambulance to its fleet through a partnership with Broward Health aimed at expanding emergency medical services and community outreach.
- The co-branded ambulance was officially welcomed Thursday during a traditional fire service push-in ceremony at Fire Station 2.
- Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, Broward Health President and CEO Shane Strum, Fire Chief Stephen Gollan and other officials joined FLFR personnel in pushing the ambulance into the station bay.
- The vehicle was made possible through state funding secured through an appropriations request sponsored by former State Sen.
- Lauren Book and state Rep.
Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue has added a new ambulance to its fleet through a partnership with Broward Health aimed at expanding emergency medical services and community outreach.
The co-branded ambulance was officially welcomed Thursday during a traditional fire service push-in ceremony at Fire Station 2. Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis, Broward Health President and CEO Shane Strum, Fire Chief Stephen Gollan and other officials joined FLFR personnel in pushing the ambulance into the station bay.
The vehicle was made possible through state funding secured through an appropriations request sponsored by former State Sen. Lauren Book and state Rep. Daryl Campbell.
The ambulance will operate at the Basic Life Support level and support FLFR personnel assigned to special events throughout Fort Lauderdale.
It will also be used to support the department’s Mobile Integrated Health (MIH) and Coordinated Opioid Recovery (CORE) programs, which connect people experiencing opioid use disorder, homelessness and behavioral health challenges with treatment, medications and other resources.
As part of the CORE program, the ambulance can be used to deliver approved medications to people experiencing opioid use disorder, facilitate access to medication-assisted treatment and support overdose-prevention efforts. It will also help replenish publicly accessible naloxone, commonly known as Narcan, distribution boxes throughout Fort Lauderdale.
“This new ambulance represents what we can accomplish when we work together to meet the needs of our community,” Trantalis said. “Our partnership with Broward Health is helping Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue expand its reach beyond traditional emergency response and connect people with care and resources where they need them.”
Strum said the ambulance strengthens the partnership between Broward Health and FLFR.
“This ambulance gives us another opportunity to work together to meet people where they are and connect them with the care and resources they need,” he said.
The ambulance is the latest initiative in the partnership between Broward Health and FLFR. Earlier this year, the organizations launched FLFR’s Whole Blood Program, allowing specially trained paramedics to administer blood to critically ill and injured patients before they reach a hospital.
Gollan said the new ambulance provides another resource for FLFR’s emergency response and community-based programs.
“We’ve already seen the impact of that partnership through our Whole Blood Program, and this ambulance gives us another resource to serve the community, whether at a special event or through the work of our Mobile Integrated Health team,” he said.
The ceremony concluded with the traditional push-in, a practice that dates to the era of horse-drawn fire apparatus. Firefighters would manually push equipment back into the station after disconnecting the horses. Fire departments continue the tradition as a symbolic way of welcoming new apparatus into service.
