RUMFORD – After considerable discussion at Thursday night’s meeting, selectmen voted 3-2 to conduct a 90-day experiment, allowing firefighters to respond to life-threatening emergency medical service calls.

The intent is to gather data on costs and effectiveness of the service then provide the information to town meeting voters in June to decide if the Fire Department should to continue providing the service.

Rumford firefighters cannot respond to EMS calls now because their state certification to provide the service expired last fall after certification money was eliminated from the department’s budget.

Arguing in favor of the 90-day trial were Chairman J. Arthur Boivin, Rob Cameron and Brad Adley. Dissenting were Mark Belanger and Frank DiConzo.

Belanger and DiConzo were the lone supporters of DiConzo’s earlier motion to try a 90-day trial of allowing Rumford firefighters to respond to life-threatening EMS calls if asked to do so by Med-Care Ambulance Service.

Adley and Boivin argued that DiConzo’s motion wouldn’t provide accurate data on the service cost; Belanger and DiConzo unsuccessfully argued otherwise.

The experiment will start when the Fire Department gets authority from the state EMS agency.