AFG award helps Minn. department buy pulse oximeters

The Duluth News Tribune

DULUTH, Minn. — Duluth firefighters have four new pulse oximeters, equipment they say will save time and money on emergency calls.

"What this does is actually measure the percentage of carbon monoxide in a patient's blood," firefighter Lisa Consie said.

Such equipment wasn't available to emergency crews at a dangerous poisoning in the Central Hillside in September 2008. A pregnant woman and her six children were overcome by carbon monoxide in a home on East Fourth Street, their bodies starved for oxygen. A 2009 Assistance to Firefighters Grant paid 80 percent of the nearly $22,000 cost of the devices. Duluth paid 20 percent, or $4,328.

Full story: Duluth firefighters able to measure people's CO levels