I received this Email from the Texas Commission on Fire Protection on ?May ?12, 1999. I had sent them an Email stating that I saw this firefighter's death listed in their ?August 1997 Newsletter, but that I did not see the death listed in any USFA or NFPA records. I guess I asked them what info they had on the incident and this is the text of the Email that they sent to me.
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Our information came from an article in the July 11, 1997 edition of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, as follows :"A Sandia firefighter was killed Wednesday [7/9] in a Live Oak County traffic accident while responding to a fire on Interstate Highway 37, Department of Public Safety officials said.
Thomas Chester Gentry, 54, died after the fire truck he was riding in approached another vehicle from behind and the driver of the fire truck tried to prevent a collision by overcorrecting, which resulted in flipping the fire truck once. The accident occurred shortly before 6:30 p.m. on Farm-to-Market Road 3024, about a mile north of Farm-to-Market Road 534 in Live Oak County, according to a DPS report.
Another man in the fire truck, Robert Garland Walker, 71, of Orange Grove, was injured, according to the report. Neither man was wearing a seatbelt, the report said.
Walker was taken to Spohn Bee County Hospital in Beeville and was in fair condition Wednesday night, accoridng to the DPS report. A hospital official said Thursday that Walker was no longer a patient there. Gentry died shortly after being taken to Columbia Northwest Hospital in Corpus Christi, the DPS report said."
- Mark Roughton, Public Information (512) 918-7236