These medical response vehicles have gasoline engines, Mixon said, and require significantly less maintenance costs compared to the custom ambulances Sumter County usually purchases. These vehicles also operate for well more than 200,000 miles, he said.  

The person who sells them has a demo vehicle in stock that he said he can soon provide to the county, another demo vehicle being built and a loaner vehicle the county can use until a third one can get here, he said.

“I know what I heard, and I did not hear the siren,” witness Kellie Dobson said.  

Dobson was having car trouble and parked in a nearby lot when troopers said a Westmoreland County ambulance driver was transporting a patient to the hospital. As the ambulance entered the intersection, it struck a Volvo sedan and a Nissan van.

Falling through a collapsing roof or starving for oxygen in rooms filled with smoke have long been among the occupational hazards for firefighters, said Houston fire Chief Samuel Peña, but his department “must now also consider protection against violent acts.”  

Houston joins an expanding list of fire departments — Boston, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh among them — that have purchased the vests.

“It is a new reality that is contrary to how we’ve always viewed this honorable profession, but protective clothing must be compatible with the environment we work in,” Peña, who oversees some 4,000 firefighters, said in a statement Wednesday. 

“They did a great job of mounting new equipment,” Chief Schaeffer said. Prior to Engine 2 entering service, fire personnel will mount some old equipment on the pumper. Engine 2 cost $615,000, Chief Schaeffer said, but the department was able to defray the cost by pulling in $175,000 from the sale of the old pumper.  

Among the features of the pumper are a 720 gallon capacity water tank and a 20 gallon Class A Foam tank. Engine 2’s pump rate is 1,500 gallons per minute.