The Sacramento Bee
(TNS)
Tim Hall badly wanted a career as a firefighter, but finding a job vacancy in that field can be difficult.
Instead of giving up on his dream and choosing another career, Hall started working as a volunteer firefighter shortly after graduating from high school. In the meantime, he found jobs to support his family for the next 23 years before he was able to secure a full-time position with the West Sacramento Fire Department.
“As a man with a young family, Tim had to put his dream on hold to provide,” said West Sacramento Fire Capt. Andy Bevins while giving Hall’s eulogy Tuesday. “He drove trucks, he built homes, but he also persisted. For many, a dream delayed would be a dream denied. But Tim Hall was dedicated.”
Hall, 59, worked 18 years as a full-time firefighter in West Sacramento. He died unexpectedly Sept. 23 during a training exercise after he collapsed and his fellow firefighters worked desperately to revive him.
Friends, family and fellow firefighters gathered Tuesday to remember Hall and support his family. Hundreds of people, many of them firefighters from departments throughout the region, honored Hall at a memorial service held at the Creekside Christian Church in Elk Grove.
Throughout his firefighting career, Hall worked as a fire investigator and as transportation specialist for a Federal Emergency Management Agency search and rescue team. He was a member of the Sacramento-Sierra Arson Task Force and the California Conference of Arson Investigators.
Bevins said he’s been amazed but not surprised by the outpouring of support and kindness from those who showed at the hospital and those in attendance Tuesday. He promised Hall’s family that the Fire Department will continue to support them.
Hall had to take a leave of absence from work in November 2021 due to a medical condition. Many would’ve decided that trying to come back to work would’ve been too difficult, Bevins told the audience, but Hall demonstrated his dedication to his job as a firefighter by returning to duty in January after more than two years away.
“Rest easy, brother. We’ll take it from here,” Bevins said. “Love you.”
Death after training at UC Davis
Hall, who held the rank of fire engineer with the department, suffered a sudden syncopal episode during a multi-company drill at the UC Davis campus, according to the Sacramento Area Firefighters Widows and Orphans Fund. A syncopal episode, which is fainting or passing out, is typically triggered by a sudden drop in blood flow to the brain.
The Firefighters Widows and Orphans Fund, which started an online fundraiser to honor Hall, said in a GoFundMe page the firefighter collapsed during a debriefing. His fellow firefighters performed CPR, which continued as medics took him to UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento.
“Everyone surrounding Tim did everything they could to save him,” but he died later at the hospital, according to the fundraising page.
Tim is survived by his wife, Susan, his children, Andrew, Taylor, Gabrielle and Victoria, and his grandchildren, Hailey, Connor and Xavier.
“Our beloved Hall family is in need of financial assistance to help them through this unfathomable time; they lost Tim so suddenly and unexpectedly,” members of the Firefighters Widows and Orphans Fund wrote in the GoFundMe page. “No donation is too small to help support them as they navigate through their grief.”
Hall was a man of few words, a stoicism that broke to impart wisdom or to demonstrate his wicked sense of humor. His wife said it was that humor that had her aching from raucous laughter. That’s how she remembered him in a written message read Tuesday by Sacramento Area Fire Chaplain Kevin Snider.
“Our hearts are filled with love knowing that so many people have come together for Tim and our family,” his wife wrote in her message. “We are all still numb and will be for a while. That’s okay, we’ll get through this time.”
Still held volunteer job in Clarksburg
Hall served as a firefighter in West Sacramento while balancing his duties as a volunteer firefighter with the Clarksburg Fire Protection District. He held that volunteer job for 41 years, rising to the rank of lieutenant and working as a training officer in Clarksburg, a town of about 300 people in Yolo County.
He grew up in Clarksburg, where he graduated from Delta High School in 1983. That same year, he began working as a volunteer firefighter. Hall graduated from the Sacramento Regional Fire Academy in 2006 and soon after fulfilled his dream of becoming a full-time firefighter for the West Sacramento Fire Department at the age of 41.
His roots in the small town are strong. Hall was heavily involved in the Clarksburg chapter of 4-H. He and his wife tended to their cows and chickens. He was in the kitchen every year for the the department’s Christmas party, preparing food all day.
Clarksburg Fire Protection District Chief Craig Hamlin said Hall had a quiet strength and humility, always showing how much he still cared about Clarksburg. He said Hall’s legacy will live in the hearts that he touched.
“He didn’t seek the spotlight or the accolades,” Hamlin said. “Instead, he let his actions speak for him.”
West Sacramento Fire Chief Steve Binns asked members of his department to lean on each other for support in the coming weeks as they continue to move forward with their duties with “hard work and grit as Tim would’ve wanted us to.” He also noted how Hall truly loved spending time with his family.
“While we are devastated and filled with grief and sorrow, we know that the depth and breadth of our pain pales in comparison to yours,” Binns told Hall’s family. “Please know that we are here with you now, and we will be here for you moving forward.”
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