A firefighter recruit who was following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather died on Tuesday after collapsing during training nearly a week ago.
Victor Melillo, 21, of Irvington, was jogging in the parking lot of the Morris County Public Safety Training Academy in Parsippany around 9:30 a.m. on March 4, New Jersey FMBA president Ed Donnelly told New Jersey 101.5. He was sent to Morristown Medical Center.
Melillo had no known underlying medical condition, according to Donnelly. He was a recruit with FMBA Local 14. It s just one of those tragic accidents. Young kid, way too young. You couldn t ask for better conditions to have some kind of situation, Donnelly said. You had 55 firefighters around him, some were EMT s so they started CPR immediately as he fell and continued CPR to the hospital and they wound up getting a pulse back at the hospital. He was oxygen deprived for just a little too long.