It's just more maneuverable. You don't have to worry about parking it and gaining access closer to the house."
The Chattanooga Fire Department is considering changing the way firefighters get to some calls.
Firefighters are asking the city for $150,000 in the 2015-216 budget to buy two “quick response vehicles” — retrofitted Ford Explorers that will be filled with medical supplies and staffed by two firefighters.
Interim Fire Chief Chris Adams believes the vehicles can be a faster, cheaper way for firefighters to get to nonfire calls. Instead of sending a full crew in a lumbering fire truck, he’d like to send a pair of firefighters in a quick response vehicle to medical calls.
The two firefighters would stabilize the patient and provide initial medical care until an ambulance arrived, Adams said. The quick response vehicles would be lighter and faster than fire apparatus.