By Bill Carey
FireRescue1/EMS1 Staff
BURKE COUNTY, N.C. — North Carolina firefighters saved the life of one of their own during a camper fire and it was not the first time this firefighter suffered a heart attack.
Chesterfield firefighter David Hart had responded to a camper trailer fire on May 26 and was working at the pump panel when he noticed he did not feel right, WBTV reported. Hart collapsed and other firefighters quickly started CPR and used a defibrillator to resuscitate him.
“It was under five minutes, but it felt like an eternity,” Amanda Buff, who first performed CPR on Hart, said. “This is like an everyday thing for us. We respond to cardiac arrests all the time, but it feels more personal when it is one of your people.”
Hart told WBTV that this was his eighth heart attack. He returned home from the hospital Monday and is already back at the fire station.