4 Chicago firefighters have died on duty this year, the most in a quarter century

Andrew “Drew” Price is the fourth Chicago firefighter to die this year, believed to be the most deaths to hit the department in a quarter of a century.

Both the total number and nature of Price’s death are unusual, fire officials said.

“[Price’s death] was due to a fall, and we haven’t had a fall injury like that in some time,” said Larry Langford, spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department.

Price was on the roof of a four-story building in the 2400 block of North Lincoln Avenue early Monday opening holes for ventilation when he fell through a skylight shaft, landing on the floor of the basement while battling an extra-alarm blaze, authorities said.

Price, 39, was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he died of “significant injuries,” Chicago Fire Department Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt said.

The fire department is still talking with the other firefighters on the scene to get a better idea of what happened, but Langford said it appears that Price fell when his vision was impaired fighting the blaze.

“He just did not see where his footing was, and the visibility may have been the issue here, but everything points to the fact that it’s an accident due to not being able to see,” Langford said.

Langford said he didn’t know Price personally, but he was known as a “funny guy” who was a “very caring, hard worker.”

“He did a lot of good at the academy as far as an instructor is concerned. To be an instructor at the academy is going a little bit above and beyond. And he did that and served well in that capacity,” Langford said.

Different circumstances marked this year’s other line-of-duty deaths, Langford said.

Lt. Kevin Ward died in August from injuries he suffered more than two weeks earlier after he became trapped in the basement of a burning home near O’Hare International Airport.

Lt. Jan Tchoryk died of a heart attack while battling a blaze in a Gold Coast high-rise April 5 — one day after firefighter Jermaine Pelt died of smoke inhalation in a South Side fire.

According to the Illinois Fire Institute, the last time four firefighters died in one year was in 1998.

Patrick King and Anthony Lockhart, both 40, died on Feb. 13, 1998, after a fire at a tire shop in Beverly suddenly “flashed over,” according to a Sun-Times article. The fire was the deadliest for the department since February 1985, when three firefighters were killed in a Northwest Side blaze.

Firefighter Eugene Blackmon, 39, an 11-year veteran of the department, died after trying to save a man who was drowning in the Little Calumet River, according to a Sun-Times article published May 20, 1998.

And Capt. Thomas Prendergast, 56, a 31-year veteran of the department, suffered a heart attack while fighting a fire on July 23, 1998, and died weeks later.

“It is very unusual to have four in-the-line-of-duty deaths in four separate fires within a year,” Langford said. “I don’t remember having four members in four separate incidents in a year [die in the line of duty]. I don’t remember that since I’ve been on the job, that’s been almost 25 years.”

“It hurts to the bone,” Langford said of the string of tragedies. “We’ve gone years and years at a time without any line-of-duty deaths or even serious injuries. [The recent deaths are] almost too much to take.”