Hamshire VFD Gets a Helping Hand

Having the equipment to treat and move patients when there's a medical emergency is a priority for both residents and communities.

But what happens when the equipment you need is damaged or destroyed?

The Hamshire Volunteer Fire Department found itself in need of a rescue.

While the Fire Chief for the Hamshire Volunteer Fire Department checks out his new ride for the next few weeks, others finish some last minute paperwork on the ambulance.

"Within one hour they had a way for us to loan them an ambulance and allow them to use it so this community has ambulance coverage."

Says Rod Carroll with Stat Care E.M.S., who called the Texas Department of Health to make the switch for Hamshire after they ran into a problem Wednesday night while taking a patient to Port Arthur.

"They weren't running lights and sirens and a cow stepped into the road, with it being pitch black like that, they couldn't see it and he hit it," says Hamshire Volunteer Fire Department Chief Justin Chesson.

Leaving the ambulance with broken headlights, blinkers and repairs that needed to be made.

"I think it's the first time TDH, the Texas Department of Health, has come across it to, where a community was left without an ambulance and someone willing to donate one for use," says Carroll.

Carroll says it normally would have taken much longer but the state okayed an emergency loan for the small volunteer fire department.

"Not a high volume of calls, but we do have call volume here," says Chesson.

Chesson says even though they have a 1972 ambulance as back up,

"It's not really a trustworthy ambulance," says Chesson.

"You're looking at hundreds of thousands of families travelling this weekend on I-10, reliability is a true issue," says Carroll.

And an issue for the more than 5,000 people in the area who depend on the volunteer services to care for them.

"It's very, very important because we service an area a long ways from the city," says Chesson.

Hamshire's other ambulance should be repaired and back in service in about two weeks.

To help off-set the cost of damages and the cost of running its volunteer services, the fire department is holding a Bar-B-Que on Sunday, April 27th.

It will be from 11 A.M. to 3 P.M. at the Hamshire Community Building on Hamshire Road and Second Street.