The Lee County Sheriff’s Office is taking a ride on the wild side. Soon deputies will be able to cruise the swamps on a swamp buggy.
The new ride is under construction and deputies are excited for the ways it will help them do their job.
Corporal Randy Hodges with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office is often seen driving a truck. Perfect for the road but not for the swamp.
But soon, he’ll be driving a different vehicle, a swamp buggy they’re getting custom built. It’s a machine the Agricultural Crimes Unit already relies on.
“We’ve had to call on other counties to respond with their buggies so we could go in and search for sexual predator that’s fled on us, crime scenes with homicides,” he says.
But Hodges says, waiting for another agency’s buggy can take two or more hours if it’s even available once this is finished, that won’t be a problem.
“It’s got all of the tools that we need to do our job, we can haul EMS personnel in we can take injured folks out on the buggy where EMS can’t get to with their fire trucks or ambulances. The buggy will allow us to enter these places where we’ve got four feet of water, vegetation’s quite high,” Hodges says.
Right now, the buggy is in pieces at West Coast Powder Coating.
“This is all your main parts all your main components,” says Anthony Falanga.
Falanga says crews will sand blast, bake, and paint it. Once complete, the swamp buggy will be more than 20 feet long and seven feet high.
“Just a monster, this is a monster machine right here,” he adds.
Hodges says its costs 35 thousand dollars, but none of that is coming out of taxpayer wallets. Forfeiture money, or money the Sheriff’s Office has seized from things like drug busts, is paying the bill.
Hodges also says the buggy’s size will allow them to bring five or six deputies to various calls.
They expect it to be ready to go out into the swamp in a couple of weeks.