Cotton Fire Department receives state-of

COTTON, Minn. (Northern News Now) - Life-saving, state-of-the-art technology is now in the hands of a rural volunteer fire department in northeast Minnesota.

“It’s an amazing thing for a rural fire department to have this, where only typically ambulance services have this or maybe a sheriff’s deputy,” said Gary Gagnon of the Cotton Volunteer Fire Department (CFD).

For years, the members of CFD have been asking for the Lund University Cardiac Assist System, commonly called the LUCAS machine, because of the impact it’ll have on the large community they protect.

“We’re in kind of a gray area here. We’re 25 minutes from an ambulance in the Range, at least 25 minutes from an ambulance in Duluth, and at least 25 minutes from an ambulance in the Meadowlands, and at least that far for an air am