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Austintown firefighters had a mournful Monday
AUSTINTOWN
A fallen 24-year veteran firefighter’s memory will live on through a symbol hanging on a wall at Mahoning County Career and Technical Center in Canfield.
Township firefighters found John Fritz, 48, of Winslow Drive, Mineral Ridge, dead at Fire Station No. 1 after he did not respond to a fire call Monday morning.
Fritz’s cause of death has not been determined, but township officials said they suspect it was a heart attack.
Youngstown Fire Department Capt. Jim Sapp, a friend of Fritz’s as well as an MCCTC fire instructor and 25-year veteran firefighter, said among all of the help Fritz provided as an MCCTC fire instructor, one will stand out forever.
“He made a bell out of an old air-pack bottle that we wear on our backs to breathe and hung it on the wall at MCCTC so we could recognize line-of-duty deaths when it rings,” he said.
Sapp said every time he rings the bell at the center, 7300 N. Palmyra Road, he will think of Fritz.
According to a news release issued by the Austintown Fire Department, Fritz had been with the department since February 1992, beginning his career there as a part-time firefighter.
By May 2009, Fritz became a career firefighter, as well as a fire instructor with MCCTC and an honor guard member.
Trustee Jim Davis said the mood was somber when he went to Fire Station No. 1 after he got the news about Fritz’s death.
“The fire service is something else. You can’t explain it because they spend more time together: 24 hours a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner,” he said. “It’s tough to see them in this way.”
Fire Chief Andrew R. Frost III said the thoughts and prayers of the fire department family are with the Fritz family.
“Anyone [who] has ever met him or been taught by him would say he’s an awesome fire instructor and a great friend and father,” Sapp said. “He was just a very genuine individual who would give you the shirt off his back.”
A 2003 Vindicator story reported on how Fritz walked 60 miles from Austintown Fire Department Station No. 1 to Cleveland Children’s Hospital to generate $5,700 in donations for the Spina Bifida Association. Fritz was motivated by his daughter, Ryley, who was born with the condition.
He said he wanted to raise money for other families dealing with children with spina bifida, one of the most-common neural-tube birth defects in the U.S., affecting 1 of every 1,000 newborns.
Fritz leaves his wife, Karen, and five children.