BULLARD, Texas — The Bullard Volunteer Fire Department has a new addition to the team-only it’s not a who, it’s a what.
"This LUCAS device is the most modern one. It’s the LUCAS 3.1...it’s an automatic CPR machine," said Lt. Kaiden Simons with the Bullard Volunteer Fire Department.
A machine that is vital to saving lives especially in rural communities.
"If we have a call deep out in the county, you may have a 30-45 minute response time up to the hospital once the ambulance gets onto the scene," Simons said.
30-45 minutes that are vital when trying to save a life. Consistent CPR that helps firefighters avoid fatigue and having to rotate, letting them focus on other tasks when trying to save a life.
"So this basically takes the job of three firefighters, so one with transporting it, it’s a lot easier, you don’t have to have someone on top of the patient doing CPR while trying to load the ambulance," Simons said. "And with fatigue comes less quality compressions and this is just continuous same quality compressions all the time."
And with a press of button, these devices have already saved lives in the field.
"It was just a cardiac arrest call deep out in the county and we were able to use this and it was able to do quality compressions all the way to the hospital," Simons said.
The volunteer fire department was able to get a grant from TC Energy to buy this $17,000 dollar machine.
"I look in the future that these kind of devices can, no matter what the brand is, to be the gold standard," said Justin Walker, the Bullard Firefighter who applied for the grant.
This is only one of two LUCAS devices any volunteer fire department in Smith County has. Noonday Volunteer Fire Department has the other device.