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Phoenix's fire chief says personal protective equipment needed for firefighters during the coronavirus pandemic are being "hijacked" before even getting across state lines.
"We have ordered millions of dollars of personal protective equipment that keeps getting hijacked before getting to the City of Phoenix," Chief Kara Kalkbrenner told KPNX-TV.
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Kalkbrenner expressed her displeasure over her department's PPE supplies after she was asked about a photo posted on social that shows two Phoenix firefighters wearing rain ponchos instead of gowns while responding to a call. Although the fire department has enough masks and gloves, it has exhausted its supplies of gowns and protective glasses.
“Some of them (protective gowns) were supposed to come off the coast of California, through San Francisco,” she told KPNX. “We had an order of 2 million pieces of N95 masks. They never made it to Arizona. Either the feds are hijacking them. It’s not the state. They’re not getting them either.”
After consulting the Centers for Disease Control and the International Association of Fire Chiefs, as well as Phoenix-area medical officials, Kalkbrenner was told that disposable rain ponchos could work as protection against exposure to COVID-19.
“What we needed was a barrier. In light of not having something, this is the best thing we could do," she told KPNX.
