Delaware firefighter saved by colleagues after suffering heart attack during training

A Delaware firefighter suffered a heart attack during training, but his colleagues acted quickly to save his life.

After an intense day of training at the Delaware Fire School in March 2026, Brandywine Hundred Fire Company Deputy Chief Steve Hammerer just keeled over.

The 47-year-old’s heart just gave out. He said he now knows he was on or just over the death line.

Within seconds of his collapse, a team was doing chest compressions, and he came back with a hard shock from the defibrillator.

“His breathing was agonal, just an occasional couple breathes of trying to breathe. Pulses was weak at the neck,” said Deputy Fire Chief Gordon Davis of the Delaware Fire School.

“As soon as they put the defibrillator on me, it advised them to shock, which they say is kinda rare, they shocked me, and I popped right up,” Hammerer explained.

This story highlights the need for all companies, organizations, schools, nonprofits, you name it, to have a defibrillator on site and have some people who are trained in CPR.

Tucker Dempsey runs the Delaware Fire School and got the phone call that someone had died during training. He is beyond relieved to know Steve is gonna be ok, and he is really, really glad his team pushed a few years back to start having an EMT at the school for every single training class.

“That’s exactly what it turned out to be, we saved one life that day, and if it never happens again, I’ll be more than happy, but it really proved its worth on that one day,” said Dempsey.