Paramedics at the Old Town Fire House aren't happy about giving up their self contained breathing apparatus, or SCBA.
If that looks like SCUBA, it should. Except where SCUBA is underwater, the paramedics use the breathers to stand close to fires and give immediate help to victims the fire fighters rescue from a blaze.
Paramedic Field Chief Patrick Fitzmaurice said these SCBAs are a critical piece of field equipment that helps the fire department paramedic save lives and protect his own.
But the Chicago Fire Department's Bureau of Operations wants to take the equipment out of more than 70 ambulances across the city because it's an unecessary tool.
"Ambulance staging and the single role paramedic will not change with the SCBA," a department spokesman wrote in an email to NBC 5. "They were never placed in a position to need it."
Fitzmaurice disagrees
"Let us keep our old ones" he said. "Give the new ones to the fire fighters. They need 'em. We need these."
