Baltimore County Firefighter Dies After Collapsing During Training Exercise
SPARROWS POINT, Md. (WJZ) -- A Baltimore County firefighter--close to retirement--collapses and dies during training. Now the department will launch an internal investigation into what happened.
Meghan McCorkell has details on the tragedy.
This is the first death at the county's Sparrow Point training facility.
A black flag hands outside Baltimore County Fire Station No. 2 in Pikesville--a place 58-year-old Bob Fogle worked for 27 years. The veteran firefighter died Friday afternoon of a suspected heart attack during a routine training exercise.
Fogle was at the county fire training academy in Sparrows Point inside a trailer called "the maze," which tests first responders' ability to use their breathing apparatus.
"He was in the maze when he succumbed to some medical emergency. He was immediately evacuated from the maze and they rendered care," said Chief John Hoh, Baltimore County Fire Department.
Fogle went into cardiac arrest. He was rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead. County officials will investigate what happened.
The maze is an exercise that every county firefighter does every single year.
Fogle trained at the facility yearly as a fire truck driver for Station 2.
"He was a quiet man and he was loved by everybody," Hoh said.
He was a talented builder, who constructed an eight person dinner table with hydrants for legs for the fire house that he dedicated to his fellow firefighters. He also built a plaque that hangs on the wall.
"It just reminds us about the sacrifice that our first responders do each and every day and the risk that they take," said Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz.
Robert Fogle is the first Baltimore County firefighter to die in the line of duty in 2014.
Fogle was also a volunteer firefighter with the Pleasant Valley Community Fire Company in Westminster.
Fogle is survived by his wife and his two grown children.
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