OXNARD : Resident to Ask That Heart Equipment Be Put on Fire Engines

An Oxnard man who wants heart-saving equipment on fire engines is taking his plea to city officials.

Skip Harkson said he will ask the Oxnard City Council to have defibrillators, which provide electric currents to revive weak heartbeats, installed on engines at the city’s six fire stations.

Harkson, a 46-year-old realtor who lives in Mandalay Bay, said he is making the request out of concern for the quality of emergency health services in his neighborhood.

“If you have a heart attack at the Whale’s Tail, the Fire Department gets there in two or three minutes with CPR or oxygen and that’s it,” Harkson said. “Then you have to wait for an ambulance, which usually takes about six minutes. You could be dead by then.”

The city Fire Department contracts with a private ambulance company that provides defibrillation service.

Both the Fire Department and the ambulance company respond to emergency calls.

Oxnard Fire Chief Richard Smith said that installing the devices on the fire trucks would be costly and that Harkson has been the only resident to complain about promptness of service. Harkson and Smith met Friday to discuss the situation.

“The first thing is to determine the validity of the complaint,” Smith said. “We’ll be talking to the ambulance company and looking at their response time.”

Defibrillators range in price from $4,000 to $7,500 each, said a spokesman for Space Labs Medical Inc., a Washington-based manufacturer that supplies medical equipment nationwide.

Mayor Manuel Lopez said he will wait to hear Harkson’s proposal, which will come before the council this month, before passing judgment.

“Everything right now, as far as city services go, is really in jeopardy,” Lopez said.

“But if a citizen or group of citizens is offering to assist with funding, we could look at that.”