Archive for September 21st, 2010

Spartan sells Road Rescue

Firegeezer.com posted an article this afternoon which can be viewed HERE stating that Spartan Motors has sold Road Rescue effective immediately.

Road Rescue Ambulance Changes Owners

SPARTAN MOTORS INC. ANNOUNCED Monday that they have sold their Road Rescue ambulance business to a subsidiary of Allied Specialty Vehicles Inc. for $8 million.  The sale was effective immeditely upon the announcement and it removes Spartan from the ambulance business entirely.

“We can now look forward to what the future holds for Spartan Motors as we focus on Emergency Response and leverage the strengths of our two great brands, Crimson Fire and Spartan Chassis,” Spartan CEO John Sztykiel said in a statement.

Automotive World reports:

The company originally announced a realignment of its business in June in order to focus its resources on the highest growth and profit opportunities. It had planned to exit its underperforming Road Rescue ambulance operation by the end of 2010.  The transaction includes substantially all of Road Rescue’s assets, including the trade names and intellectual property associated with the business which is located wholly in Marion, South Carolina.

Sztykiel further stated:  “With this sale, we are delivering on the commitments we made when we announced our exit from the Road Rescue business … We can now look forward to what the future holds for Spartan Motors as we focus on Emergency Response and leverage the strengths of our two great brands, Crimson Fire and Spartan Chassis.  Over the last 12 months, Spartan has evolved, as has the Emergency Response market, and the Road Rescue operation is not large enough to justify the resource commitment when we have greater potential elsewhere. Road Rescue partnered with another ambulance company, where there is additional scale and product breadth, would be a real asset.”

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International RIT Training in Bensenville

The training opportunities continue at the O’Hare Modernization Property in Bensenville. This past week, firefighters from throughout the US were joined by firefighters from several other countries to learn techniques for Rapid Intervention Team deployment. The 40-hour course was run by RICOFIRERESCUE, Inc. founded by Lt. Mike Mason from the Downers Grove Fire Department. They used three separate structures with varying scenarios. Photos showing some of the training and setup on the final day can be seen on John Tulipano’s web page HERE and another gallery including a smoky video of a rescue can be seen on Larry Shapiro’s site HERE. The scenario for the video is a firefighter trapped from a floor collapse (the setup is shown in John’s gallery) with weak floor conditions prompting the RITs to breach a wall to reach the firefighter ‘Captain Black’. Of interest is that RIT 1 is a group of firefighters from France and RIT 2 is US (english speaking) firefighters. A bi-lingual instructor translates communications into French during the exercise so that everyone is able to communicate clearly.

RICOFIRERESCUE

A firefighter from Germany enters one of the buildings as part of a RIT to rescue a trapped firefighter. Larry Shapiro Photo

RICOFIRERESCUE

Smoky conditions provided for very limited visibility during the rescue operation. Larry Shapiro Photo

RICOFIRERESCUE

The RITs carry the victim from the building. Larry Shapiro Photo

RICOFIRERESCUE

This shot shows the wall breach after the exercise was completed. Larry Shapiro photo

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