Rockland County, NY - To Purchase New Emergency Helicopter

Rockland County, NY - Officials want to retire the county's 32-year-old emergency helicopter and purchase a new $3.25 million model.
Dan Greeley, assistant director of fire and emergency services, said the helicopter has been used in a variety of missions, from search and rescue to lighting up a dark area for emergency workers. "It goes up quite a bit," he said.

Greeley said a new chopper would have more advanced radio and global positioning systems. It would also have a rappelling capability to send rescue workers by rope down to hard-to-reach sites, such as on Bear Mountain. "It could save hours," he said.
The new model would also include a winch, or hoist, to lower a basket or flotation device down via cable.

Now in the earliest of planning stages, the request for the new helicopter, sent from the County Executive's Office, was tabled at a recent meeting of the county Legislature's Public Safety Committee.
County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef said that it's more expensive to continually repair and replace parts of the helicopter than to buy a new one. "It's like a car," he said.
And there's an obvious safety issue for the county's pilots, Vanderhoef said, should the chopper break down during use.

Legislator and committee Chairman David Fried, D-Spring Valley, said he and other committee members wanted more information before voting to send the request on to the full Legislature.
The committee, he said, has requested a record of all incidents the helicopter has been called to, along with the types of calls.

The chopper has continued to get more and more requests, Johnston said, and has been going up several times a month.