In Northwest Indiana, Andy Finick, a licensed amateur radio operator, helps hospitals maintain communications when all other systems fail in an emergency situation, according to an article on the Chicago Tribune website.
He has radio equipment bolstered with a repeater system and antennae squirreled away in hospitals throughout Lake County.
Finick maintains equipment at Community Hospital in Munster, St. Mary Medical Center in Hobart, Franciscan Health hospitals in Hammond and Dyer and the Lake County Department of Health in Crown Point. St. Catherine Hospital in East Chicago will be equipped next.
Though called amateur radio, professional first-responders are respectful of its role — and Finick — in their disaster-response plans.
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