PHOTOS: The rain was pounding in the Mojave Desert on the Saturday before Easter when the first call came in about a crash along Interstate 15. Details were sketchy: head-on collision, Mercedes versus another car, a 7-year-old not breathing, a nurse on scene performing CPR.
San Bernardino County Fire Protection District Capt. Dan Tellez and his crew were more than a half hour away. The next closest responding ambulance was more than 70 miles away, and the nearest trauma center was more than an hour away by road — if there was no traffic.
Fire Station 53 in the tiny town of Baker, home to the “world’s tallest thermometer,” has the only dedicated emergency medical services to cover a 93-mile span of the four-lane highway between Yermo and the Nevada border.