An autopsy on a Dolton firefighter who died in the line of duty was performed Sunday but a determination his cause of death was still pending, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Firefighter Lawrence Matthews, 35, of Glenwood, collapsed and went into cardiac arrest after battling a blaze at a mobile home in Harvey Saturday afternoon, officials said.
Matthews was transported to Ingall Memorial Hospital, and pronounced dead at 3:15 p.m., according to the Medical Examiner’s Office.
Matthews was the recipient of a heart transplant in 2007 at the University of Chicago Hospital, according to a press release on the hospital’s website. Doctors approved his working as a firefighter after he passed a physical and he was sworn in as one in 2009.
“The team often reminded me, before and after the transplant, about the need to live a normal life again,” Matthews said in the press release. “They told me to go for it. And that’s all I needed to hear.”
The mobile home near 150th Street and Rockwell Avenue was destroyed in the fire.
Enrique Montes said his mother-in-law’s neighboring home also sustained heavy damage.
He said he tried to keep the fire from spreading early on by hosing down his mother-in-law’s roof with a garden hose.
Montes said he saw Lawrence with another firefighter also trying to keep the fire from spreading by putting out nearby blazes in brushes and trees across an alley.
A little while later Montes said Matthews appeared to start to faint when several rescue workers rushed him to a nearby ambulance.
“They did a great job,” Montes said of the firefighters battling the blaze. “They busted their butts.”
He said the mobile home where the fire started had been vacant for about a year.
Montes said his mother-in-law’s home is mostly damaged on the inside and she can no longer live there.
Authorities had yet to release additional information Sunday.
Frank Vaisvilas is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
