Houston Fire Cadet Collapses, Dies During Training

Cadet Steven Whitfield II had completed nearly all the obstacles at the Houston Fire Department's rigorous Survival House on Thursday morning when something went wrong.

Whitfield, a 32-year-old aspiring firefighter from Beaumont, collapsed about 11 a.m. The other cadets in Class 2015-Grushed to his side, as did a medic crew waiting outside.

Their efforts to revive him were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead just before 1 p.m. at Memorial Hermann - Texas Medical Center.

"We're in deep, deep sorrow," said Maudell Whitfield, Steven's 102-year-old grandmother, who raised him in her rural Beaumont home from the time he was a toddler.

He worked hard all his life, his grandmother said, whether as an athletics coach in the Austin area or by helping her now-deceased husband build a log cabin.

Then he told her he wanted to be a firefighter.

"Steve, that's a very dangerous job, sugar," she told him. "Isn't there another job you'd like doing?"

But he'd made up his mind, and after he started training last October, he told her he liked it.

She last saw him a few weeks ago, on his birthday, when he told her about his friends and fellow cadets.

"We're all like brothers in that fire department," he told her. "I sure do enjoy working there."

The cadet's death marks another sad day for the Houston Fire Department, which has lost several firefighters and cadets in the line of duty in recent years.

Most recently, in February 2015, Capt. Dwight Bazile collapsed and later died while helping extinguish a fire in south Houston.

The last time an HFD cadet died in the line of duty was in 2009, when 26-year-old Cohnway M. Johnson collapsed after finishing a training run. He died in the hospital several days later.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced Whitfield's death Thursday afternoon.

"Cadet Whitfield signed up to be a public servant for the city of Houston. It is a dangerous job," Turner said. "This city will be forever grateful for him."

Interim Fire Chief Rodney West said the cause of Whitfield's collapse is still under investigation.

'Every possible effort'

Whitfield joined the department Oct. 26, 2015, and was scheduled to graduate from training in June. He had been working his way through obstacles in the Survival House when he collapsed.

HFD Capt. Ruy Lozano said the department created the facility - a 3,400-square-foot, two-story structure - to help cadets confront the chaotic challenges that have proven lethal to firefighters around the country.

"There's no live fire, there's no smoke," Lozano said, explaining that the facility, located at the Val Jahnke Training Facility, is also air conditioned and monitored by cameras.

"Within any training program, there are always a few injuries, but they've all been minor," Executive Assistant Chief Richard Mann said. "This is the first serious injury we've had with this training prop since we started this in 2009."

David Persse, HFD's medical director, said cadets and the medical crew immediately began CPR on Whitfield and tried to lower his body temperature. At Memorial Hermann Medical Center, doctors tried to restart his heart, but he was pronounced dead at 12:48 p.m.

"Every possible effort was made to resuscitate the cadet," Persse said.

'Life is too short'

As word of Whitfield's death spread, firefighters in the Houston area and around the country offered their condolences.

"This tragic passing of Cadet Whitfield reminds us of the inherent dangers of our profession," Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association president Alvin W. White Jr. said in a statement Thursday.

"We are grateful to our firefighter brothers and sisters, the academy instructors and cadets, and the hospital staff for their valiant attempts to save Cadet Whitfield."

Many firefighters posted images on social media of the department's seal, covered with a traditional black strip of mourning.

"I'm at a loss for words for now, life is too short," one of Whitfield's fellow cadets wrote. "You better make these days count."

As for Whitfield's grandmother, she and her family say that while they're heartbroken, they hope he's in a better place.

"He was always anxious to do something that would be of good service," she said.

Chronicle researcher Joyce Lee contributed to this report.

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