POLAND — Western Reserve Joint Fire District Chief David “Chip” Comstock may have caught a few off guard with a Tuesday announcement.

He posted on social media that the “fire district was acquiring a used 1999 EMS helicopter.”

In the post, he said the district got the $1.2 million helicopter for only $850,000. He said the helicopter was obtained when conventional ambulances are hard to get. That part was somewhat believable as the district is receiving new ambulances in a few months that were ordered well over a year ago.

The post further stated the district would be training several employees to obtain a pilot’s license. He wrote in the post, “We are blessed to have several of our employees willing to attend pilot training on their own time.”

“Most people who read the post got it when they read to the end,” Comstock said.

At the bottom of the post he wrote, ” At this point, the district hopes to have the air ambulance in place by Thanksgiving — when it will celebrate the occasion by teaming up with a local (presently unnamed) radio station and will release live turkeys from above to holiday shoppers at Poland’s Town One Plaza. More details will be released by the district prior to the event.”

That statement is what gave it all away as an April Fool’s Day joke. It referred to a specific episode of “WKRP in Cincinnati” when the radio station air dropped turkeys from a helicopter.

At the end of the day, a lot of people got a good laugh at the post. All they had to do was realize it was April Fool’s Day.