In January 2020, Lubbock firefighters Matt Dawson and Eric Hill and Lubbock police officer Nicholas Reyna were working a crash scene along I-27 when a car hit them. Hill and Reyna died. Dawson survived with serious injuries and died in 2023.
Chris Riley, Idalou's assistant fire chief, says that crash changed how his department works. Crews were handling more traffic control at wrecks, so they retrofitted one of their original frontline engines to protect firefighters on the road. The unit carries flashing lights and a sign to direct traffic. In the worst case, it acts as a barrier between oncoming cars and first responders.
The switch cost real money. Riley says the department normally sells an old engine for $25,000 to $40,000 and puts that toward other gear. This time, the $40,000 investment could have gone toward a $500,000 tanker.
For a small department, that is a big trade. And Riley says it hasn't fixed the underlying problem. Drivers still tell him they didn't see the crew.
Riley's answer to that excuse is hard to argue with: "There's a five-ton vehicle with flashing lights. There's a sign up. There are cones."