SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WCIA) — The Springfield Fire Department announced this week it has acquired a new tool in its belt helping paramedics.

They bought more than twenty new high tech cardiac monitors. They can test patients’ blood for carbon monoxide and provide more powerful EKG readings. The monitors are also FDA approved.

Fire officials say the new equipment will save time in life-or-death situations.

“Now we can expand from the 12-Lead EKG up into the 15-lead, using some newer algorithms to really look at the patient’s cardiac rhythm and if we think that they’re having a heart attack where exactly that heart attack may be happening and we can send that information to the hospitals,” Springfield Deputy Fire Chief Bryce McCormick said.

The new equipment is already on fire trucks.