New life for old equipment

Once again we find Albero spewing drivel on a subject he knows little or nothing about. The equipment at the Salisbury Fire Dept Training center that was been systematically dismantled is to be used as training props for continuing education and for certification classes. Lets take a quick look at the equipment.

The ambulance body you see there had reached its useful life as an ambulance and was converted to a vehicle to be used by the dive team. I am not sure how long this unit served as “Dive 1”, but as with any vehicle, time, mileage, and general use took its toll. Point being, this vehicle has had two complete and hard missions within the Department and the cost of maintaining it was prohibitive. I would doubt the resale of this vehicle on any market would net more than a few hundred dollars.

The fire engine at the training area was one of two purchased at the same time. And has again reached it’s useful life. It is my understanding that this piece suffered some major transmission issues, (among other things) and it also was cost prohibitive to attempt to maintain this piece. An attempt was made, as I understand, to sell this piece on E-Bay. Apparently there were no serious bids offered. As I said, this is a twin to another piece in the department. In order to maintain the twin as a reserve engine, parts were robbed from the now dismantled piece. The reserve engine is still in service. Now the question remained, what to do with what’s left? The idea of turning these derelicts into training aids came from within the dept. The idea was kicked around and was determined to be feasible. The ambulance body can be used to train E.M.S. personnel in a true setting. Working on a patient in a cramped enclosed space is a lot different than in a classroom. Pump operators and future pump operators now have a hands on prop to use to learn and understand the concepts of hydraulics on the fire ground. The hose bed will be used in training recruit firefighters in the proper storage and deployment of the hose lines. These are important and basic operations that need to be learned early. The cab of the engine can be used in Officer Candidate training and in advanced officer training. Some much of this training depends on role-playing and hands on application; this can prove to an invaluable prop.

I feel sure that the Salisbury Fire Dept will also be willing to share these props with other departments for training purposes and with the Maryland Fire and Rescue Institute for the same reasons.

True—There are thousands of dollars sitting there in his picture. But that was twenty plus years and a lot of mileage ago. This is also equipment that is used hard. Giving this equipment another life as a training tool for a new generation of firefighters seems like a good idea to me.

Maybe Albero should spend a little time, like 5 years or so, participating in fire department training before he spouts off about something he knows nothing about. At best he should re-evaluate his source of information with in the department.

Possibly Albero can explain this:

"....make a REAL attempt to sell it on Ebay."

What constitutes a real attempt? You put it on Ebay and it sells or it doesn’t . Is there some way to solicit bids? Please enlighten us.