LIMA, Peru (AP) — Every time Alex Herhuay sets out in his Lima fire brigade's 36-year-old Isuzu hook-and-ladder truck for a rescue, his worries aren't just about the mission ahead.
"We are thinking: 'I sure hope the engine doesn't quit,'" the young firefighter said.
Peru's economy may be booming, but there is scant evidence of the export-driven mineral bonanza in Herhuay's fire company, nor in the other 191 citizens brigades in this rugged Andean country of 29 million people.
Peru's firefighters are so cash-strapped and ill-equipped that vital lifesaving equipment too often fails at a burning building or at a crash scene where people are pretzeled in mangled …
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