FYI, the call came in to Stillwater from a passing motorist, SFD rolled 2 ambulances, Rescue, and Medic One, then asked Central (Stillwater's unified dispatch) to call Guthrie and see if they were responding. Guthrie was responding and asked that SFD continue 1 ambulance and associated units. This is quite common for responses along I-35 both north and south. Stillwater will first roll the appropriate units then contact the appropriate agency (Guthrie or Perry) and coordinate with them.
I like the current fire chief here, he has really worked hard to establish good working relations with other departments in the area. By way of contrast, the fire chief when I worked at SPD was very much a "get the h*** off my turf" kind of guy. He even had the PD dispatch console disconnected from the FD radio so we couldn't communicate with FD units in the field. This resulted in an ambulance almost being wrecked because they weren't allowed to talk to the PD, and tried to take a wrong route to an accident scene. I ended up getting a personal apology from the FD captain on duty who had basically told me to shut up and mind my own business when I tried to get the ambulance switched over to 155.490 so I could give them driving directions. It is funny in retrospect, but at the time it could have been tragic.
Mark S.
