ROCKLAND – On New Year’s Day 2017, a Rockland firefighter’s air pack malfunctioned while he was on the second floor of a burning building. He was suddenly unable to draw oxygen from his Self Contained Breathing Apparatus. Later, after fleeing the potentially toxic situation, and after being transported to a larger hospital for overnight observation, his colleagues would learn that faulty equipment and age deterioration may have been related to the mishap.

The equipment company, responsible for the 32 air packs used by Rockland, had not informed Rockland Fire/EMS of its knowledge of the faulty parts, according to Chief Chris Whytock. Following the incident, however, the company has fixed all of the packs for free.

Regardless, the packs were originally purchased in 1992, then updated in 2000 in order to meet 1997 standards. Technology has since passed by again.

“They’ve definitely outlived their usefulness,” Whytock said.

“We have found ourselves falling behind with our mutual aid departments as the technology and safety upgrades increase,” Whytock wrote in a grant proposal. “Without a significant upgrade to current NFPA 1981 standards we could be putting lives in unnecessary danger.”

A $25,000 grant recently awarded by the Stephen and Tabitha King Foundation will cover the replacement of six or seven packs. For the rest, Whytock awaits response of a larger FEMA grant that would bring the department closer to the necessary $236,000.

The FEMA grant was a long, painstaking process, he said, taking him about a year to accumulate the necessary paperwork and submittal deadlines. In June, he will learn whether his proposal made it through the first round.

Last year, this federal grant program received 20,000 applications, according to Whytock. Only a small fraction of them received financial awards.

Using ‘antiquated’ equipment that forces the responder to look at a free-swinging meter instead of the new electronic meters that display information directly to the inside of the face shield may not be a big complaint.

Yet, the New Year’s incident gives the department an advantage in the process.

So, too, does the department’s reliance on recycled equipment.

“We had to have two air packs fixed last fall,” he said. “The pieces that we used to fix our air packs were actually taken from the trash of other departments that were throwing their stuff away…. That’s how old these things are, and it shows why we need updated equipment.”

Reach Sarah Thompson at news@penbaypilot.com