Marin Independent Journal (California)
By Gary Klien and Jennifer Upshaw
Photo courtesy of Southern Marin Fire Protection District
Deputy Chief Jeff Powers. |
MARIN, Calif. — The deputy chief of the Southern Marin Fire Protection District collapsed at work and died Thursday as his own firefighters tried desperately to save him.
Jeff Powers, a 23-year veteran, was 44 and lived in San Rafael. His survivors include his wife and two small children.
An autopsy is pending.
Powers collapsed at 12:20 p.m. while talking to colleagues at the Spencer Avenue firehouse in Sausalito, said county fire Battalion Chief Mike Giannini. Firefighters tried to resuscitate Powers in the ambulance on the way to Marin General Hospital, but he was pronounced dead after reaching the emergency room.
Firefighters sat on the curb outside the hospital and broke into tears, said Curry Eckelhoff, a fire board member whose daughter-in-law happened to be the emergency room nurse who received Powers.
"Everybody knows everybody," Eckelhoff said. "They are a very big, tight-knit family. It doesn't matter what department. Those guys are just unglued."
Powers, second-in-command at the 52-employee fire department, died the day after the fire board met to appoint a successor to Chief Denis Walsh, who is retiring. The board named Battalion Chief Jim Irving to the post, effective upon Walsh's expected departure in October.
Powers rose from captain to battalion chief before being named deputy chief in April 2007. He was brought up to fill a vacancy left by Walsh, who took the top post when 32-year veteran Mike Stone retired.
Powers began his Southern Marin firefighting career with the old Tamalpais Fire Protection District, which merged with the Alto-Richardson Fire Protection District in 1999 to form the Southern Marin agency. The Sausalito Fire Department joined the Southern Marin district in July 2006.
"It's like a family," said fire board member Kurt Chun. "To lose one of your own — it's very, very hard."
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