Dealers give ventilators and more to save lives

After hearing about a nationwide shortage of ventilators because of the worsening coronavirus pandemic, Jim Falk, owner of Valley Isle Ford in Kahului, Hawaii, called his local hospital to see how he could help.

Workers at the Maui Memorial Medical Center, about 2 miles from his showroom on Hawaii's second-biggest island, told him they would need more breathing devices to help treat the increasing number of infected patients. Falk hung up the phone and wrote a check for $110,000, enough to buy 10 ventilators. They were ordered the next day and were en route as of press time.

"I just couldn't imagine the idea of not being able to breathe just because a piece of equipment wasn't available," he said. "I love this little community. My kids grew up here; we're all part of it. We're all in it together."

From Maui to Morristown, single-point stores to multimillion-dollar public groups, dealers are reinforcing underequipped hospitals in their communities with lifesaving medical equipment in the fight against COVID-19. Many are raiding their service-center supply closets for masks and gloves, while others are donating money or food to keep health care workers fed, even as showrooms around the nation close under shelter-in-place orders.

Jason Lawrence, vice president of Lucas Auto Group in New Jersey, didn't have a cache of supplies to donate to doctors and nurses in his area, so he's making some.

His family owns three Prusa 3D printers, which he normally uses to print hard-to-acquire plastic components to refurbish vintage or antique cars to sell at his dealership group, with locations in Burlington and Lumberton, N.J.

Just as automakers such as General Motors and Ford Motor Co. have pivoted to building medical equipment, Lawrence last month started using the printers to make face shields and masks to send to local hospitals and doctor's offices. He also dispensed the gear among the store's employees, neighbors and family.

"It's the right thing to do, but especially because I had the machines," Lawrence told Automotive News. "These major manufacturers can't keep up with everything. I would hope that somebody else [with printers] would do the same."

Two of the printers are at his home and he moved one into the closed showroom of Lucas Chevrolet.

Lawrence started with face shields, producing about 20 to 25 a day for about a week. He then transitioned to washable, reusable face masks using an open-source design from a clinic in Billings, Mont.

Raw material for the printers is sold in spools online. On average, each spool of filament costs $40, and it takes one spool to produce about four masks, depending on the size. Last Monday, Lawrence donated 15 masks to a local OB-GYN office.

Lawrence takes his masks and shields to a local drop-off site, which then sanitizes and ships them to wherever they're needed.

The donations vary in size and are happening across the country.

Lithia Motors, the third-largest public dealership group in the nation, donated 4,800 gloves and 40 protective eyewear products last month to Oregon hospital system Asante, near its headquarters in Medford, Ore.

Lithia's stores had the supplies in stock, but felt compelled to donate as much as they could while leaving enough available for their workers.

"During this time, it's our duty to do whatever we possibly can not only for our team members but for our communities," Lithia CEO Bryan DeBoer said.

"We know our health care workers are struggling now to get the protective equipment they need to stay safe, so this is just a small contribution to help in that regard."

There was a similar effort on the East Coast, where John Wall, owner of Wall's Ford in Salisbury, Mass., donated dust masks from its service center to the local fire department.

"They're not medical-grade by any means," Wall said. "Whatever they could get at that point was better than what they had, which was nothing."

In Morristown, N.J., Beyer Family Automotive Group loaded a Ford Transit Connect with cases of 3M masks to drop off at the Morristown Medical Center. The company also has donated fruit for the hospital staff for a number of weeks.

"It's a no-brainer," Bridget Beyer, dealer principal, said in a video promoting the group's efforts.

For some, the decision to donate is more personal, driven by family and friends who work in the health care industry.

Elliot Silk, service director for the five-rooftop Suntrup Automotive Group in St. Louis, said a friend called him last month, worried about his daughter who is a resident doctor and was working on coronavirus patients without a protective mask.

Silk said he was able to locate and buy 40 N95 respirator masks and filters used for body shop paint work — for a few thousand dollars — and on March 27, Suntrup donated the masks to Silk's friend's daughter to be used at Saint Louis University Hospital.

"The CEO of SLU called me on my cellphone later that day to thank me personally [and said] that the pulmonary doctors and the heart doctors are using the product and they loved it and they wanted to want to reach out to me personally and thank me for getting all these masks for them," Silk said.

Silk said he's trying to locate more masks and replacement filters.

"As soon as we get those in, I'm going to donate those to them as well," he said.

Melissa Burden contributed to this report.