A local police department is asking for the community’s help in raising funds to install new equipment in their squad cars.
The Tomahawk Police Department has been raising money to equip all their squad cars with Automatic External Defibrillators, or AEDs. Police Chief Al Elvins says the Rodeo Saloon in Tomahawk hosted a fundraising event last weekend and raised twelve hundred dollars. He says they’ve purchased five AEDs from Dixie Medical in Tennessee and are looking to buy five more.
“…we’re an elderly population up here and we can get to the homes faster than the ambulance service, faster than the fire department. If you can resuscitate a person within the first 10 minutes the likelihood they can live increases dramatically. I think it’s part of our duty as police officers to do what we can to save lives. We are so often getting bad press for not doing what we should’ve done well we want to show that we are committed to the community and want to do the right thing.”
Elvins says each defibrillator costs around seventeen hundred dollars. He says the rest of defibrillators will be purchased locally from Allied 100 in Woodruff.
The police department hasn’t set a fundraising goal yet, but says they have an account set up at Tomahawk Community Bank for donations.
For more information visit the Tomahawk Police Department’s Facebook page.
