JFRD identifies firefighter who died in line of duty early Thursday

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For the third time this year a firefighter with the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department has died in the line of duty.

He has now been identified as Engineer Michael L. Freeland.

Chief Keith Powers says he was working on a prolonged extrication involving a U-Haul around 1 a.m.

He says Freeland was in the U-Haul and at one point he stepped out of the back and collapsed.

“At this point we’re still waiting on the medical examiner to give us a cause of death,” Powers says.

LISTEN: JFRD Chief Keith Powers on Jacksonville’s Morning News

He says there has been “speculation that it was a downed power line,” but they’re going to wait for the official cause to come out.

Powers says when Freeland went down, one of the firefighters nearby grabbed him and started life-saving measures. He was then taken to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

“He received advanced life-support care from almost the second he collapsed until the doctors at UF Health called him,” Powers says.

Powers spoke to the incident commander and was told the U-Haul hit a light pole. Powers says there was a wire on the ground, but it’s unclear if that was involved with the death. There were several firefighters working from different angles to pull the patient out of the U-Haul.

“It was a pretty difficult and a lengthy extrication,” Powers says. “They had been working on trying to get the patient out for about 30 minutes.”

Powers say Freeland was assigned to Station 73 and had been on the job for a little over seven years. He was an engineer for roughly two years.

Two other employees of JFRD have died this year. Action News Jax reported in June when Captain Tom Barber died after 21 years with the department. In August, the department announced the death Lt. Mario J. Moya, who died from COVID-19.

Funeral arrangements for Freeland will be announced at a later time.

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