OLEAN, N.Y. — Life-saving technology designed to improve emergency response times is on its way to the Southern Tier.

Southern Tier Health Care Systems in Olean has been awarded a more than $132,000 federal grant. Leaders say money will be used to purchase equipment for distance-learning training for first responders. Topics will range from responding to cardiac emergencies and drug overdoses.

The four sites include Gerry, Salamanca, Franklinville, and Cuba. The goal is reduce travel times to places like Albany, and save money on food, fuel and lodging. 

"[It’ll] ease the strain on our providers and we're really excited and thrilled about the increased access to education that's going to happen as a result," said Jeffrey Ciminesi, Southern Tier Health Care Systems program development coordinator.

"It'll increase our level of training now and put more training certificates in our employees files so they'll be better equipped to handle scenarios that come up that they might not normally have been trained to handle," said Dustin Burch, Cuba police chief.

The training will start once the equipment arrives in the coming months.