A Walker County firefighter suffered a heart attack when a portion of the ceiling fell on him and four colleagues while fighting a fire in Chattanooga Valley, Fire Chief Randy Camp said.
Allen Cochren was one of the firefighters who responded to the kitchen fire on Williams Avenue, Camp said. An advance team fighting the blaze inside got caught under falling flaming debris, which struck Cochren in the chest and tangled the fire hose.
While regrouping outside and outfitting another hose to spray the growing fire, Cochren began having shortness of breath, Camp said. In the time it took to pull out of the one-story frame house and rig another water source, the fire more than doubled in size, destroying the house.
An EMT treated Cochren at the scene and thought Cochren was having a heart attack, which Cochren denied, Camp said.
"She came to me and said, "Your firefighter needs to go to the hospital but he's refusing to go," Camp said. "That's one symptom of a heart attack -- denying that you're having one. I asked if he was still having shortness of breath and he said yes and I said "Well you're going to the hospital."
At Hutcheson Medical Center, doctors determined he was having a heart attack and sent him to the cardiac catheterization lab at Parkridge Medical Center in Chattanooga, Camp said. He is doing well and was due to be released Wednesday.
Cochren's injury is one of several this year. Firefighter Leslie Edwards was hospitalized after a burning porch collapsed at a house fire in Noble and Jason Kirby was also treated and released from medical care after suffering burns at a fire on Tennessee Avenue.
"Firefighters work hard and expend a lot of energy (while fighting a fire)," Camp said. "Thirty minutes of firefighting is equal to 8 hours of manual labor as far the physical drain on a firefighter."
Republished with permission of the Walker County Messenger.
