North Carolina Firefighter Suffers Heart Attack, Dies

Ricky Bagolie

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Another first responder has suffered a fatal heart attack while fighting a fire, North Carolina firefighter Kelly Michael Kincaid, a reserve firefighter with the Morganton Department of Public Safety, died late Sunday night, two days after suffering a heart attack while trying to put out a pair of fires in his own neighborhood.

The fires were ablaze just three blocks from his house.

As reported in Firehouse.com

Kincaid was among the first on the scene. But he collapsed by the side of one of the homes, said Burke County Sheriff John McDevitt, while running hoses to the back of a house. When emergency personnel spotted him, he had no detectable pulse and wasn't breathing.

Firefighters, known to have a higher risk of hear attack, heart disease and pulmonary disability than the general public , are urged to be closely monitored and tested through their workers' compensation system.