By Debbie Carson, Online Editor
GIFFORD — Gifford community leaders will celebrate the grand opening of their first fire station Saturday morning with the first official siren blast.
“This is a dream come true,” said Freddie Woolfork, chair of the Gifford Front Porch Revitalization Council.
Members of the community will gather at the fire station, located at 49th Street and 35th Avenue, at 10 a.m. for the ribbon cutting ceremony. Though the fire station will open without an ambulance, it will be equipped with an Advanced Life Support fire engine. The county’s Emergency Services Department has plans to add an ambulance sometime in the future as funds become available in the budget, according to Assistant Chief Ed Prime.
The ALS engine will provide emergency responders with the tools they need to stabilize the patient until an ambulance can arrive to provide transport to the hospital.
The $2.1 million fire station was built in part with a $750,000 grant from the Florida Department of Community Affairs.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Indian River County NAACP President Tony Brown said of the Gifford Fire Station, adding that the community has been seeking its own station since the late 1980s.
While Gifford leaders said they would have like to have had an ambulance at the station right away, they understand the budget constraints the county is facing.
“My grandmother would say ‘Don’t cut your nose off to spite your face,'” Brown said, adding that the first step for Gifford was to get a station. Now that it does, they can focus on finding ways to fund an ambulance.
“We understand the economic times,” Woolfork said. “We’re not at all upset.”
For years, the fire station on 43rd Avenue has been the primary station to respond to fire and medical emergencies in Gifford.
Brown said that there have been times that trains have held up emergency crews from Station 3 on 43rd Avenue in responding to the Gifford community.
The new station, Brown said, would help keep response times to a minimum and help prevent tragedies from happening.
“We are thankful,” Brown said of having a Gifford fire station.
