By Mitch Fryer
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
DAYTON, Pa. — A veteran volunteer firefighter in Armstrong County died at the Dayton fire station while responding to an alarm.
Larry "Jack" Lockhart, 69, of Dayton, a firefighter for 49 years, suffered a fatal heart attack Sunday afternoon as the company was responding to a fire in Ringgold in Jefferson County, where a gas furnace had exploded in the basement of a house.
"Jack was going to drive the tanker truck," said Ken Greenwald, the assistant fire chief in Dayton.
"He got in, got behind the wheel and told his son, Mike, that he had better drive, he didn't feel right. He was told to go back inside and man the radio."
"As soon as we got to the fire, there was a call that both of his sons, Mike and the company's fire chief, Barry, needed to return to the fire hall immediately," Greenwald said.
Larry Lockhart was a former fire chief and president of the company and was the company's forest fire warden, according to Greenwald.
"All of the family is in the fire department," Greenwald said. "They're taking it pretty rough."
A National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health study published in July listed sudden cardiac death as the most common cause of line-of-duty deaths among firefighters, claiming about 45 every year.
Copyright 2008 The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
