The family of a prospective Fort Myers firefighter who died overheating during a training exercise two years ago is suing the city.
Fort Myers Fire Chief Tracy McMillion in July 2024 announced that Nathaniel Wilcox, 22, died after a firefighter-hiring physical assessment, which is similar to the physical ability test police officers perform, in “feels like” triple digits.
Nathaniel Wilcox’s mother, Jennifer Wilcox, is suing the city through attorney Ty Roland, for more than $50,000. The lawsuit lists two counts against the city — negligence resulting in wrongful death and negligence per se resulting in wrongful death.
According to the 24-page lawsuit, filed July 7, Miami-born Nathaniel Wilcox did not have a spouse or children, adding that Jennifer Wilcox and the late firefighter’s father, Eddie Wilcox, are his “sole survivors.”
Nathaniel Wilcox was a former South Carolina college football player who aspired to be a firefighter, hoping to positively impact the Fort Myers Fire Department, according to court filings.
The late firefighter’s training exercise was scheduled for 3:30 p.m. July 9, 2024, “during the peak heat of the day,” at the Fort Myers Fire Department’s Station #11, 2033 Jackson St., according to the lawsuit.
The training consisted of an untimed 105-foot aerial ladder climb followed by seven timed firefighting-simulation tasks to be completed within 10 minutes, a mandatory candidate-evaluation checkpoint, and navigation ofa 24-foot confined-space prop, according to the suit.
All tasks were performed outdoors, and all components after the ladder climb were performed while Nathaniel Wilcoxwore personal protective equipment and carried a self-contained breathing apparatus that weighed approximately 22 to 25 pounds, the complaint says.
The lawsuit argued that the evaluation Nathaniel Wilcox participated in was not the Candidate Physical Ability Test, thefirefighter candidate evaluation jointly developed by the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the International Association of Fire Fighters, widely adopted as the industry standard for pre-employment physicalscreening.
According to the complaint, Fort Myers Fire “instead used a proprietary evaluation that, upon information and belief, involves more events and a longer duration than the CPAT and imposes greater physiological demands upon candidates.”
“By requiring Nathaniel to perform maximal-exertion physical tasks in extreme environmental heat, while carrying protective equipment, at a time, place, and under conditions that FMFD alone selected and controlled, FMFD created a foreseeable zone of risk of serious bodily injury and death,” the lawsuit reads in part.
On July 5, 2024, four days before Nathaniel Wilcox died, the lawsuit says, an undisclosed assistant fire chief of Fort Myers Fire emailed candidates warning that weather may play a part in the flow of the evaluation and that testing would pause if conditions were unsafe. Makeup dates had been pre-scheduled for July 10, 2024, and July 11, 2024.
The lawsuit says neighboring Cape Coral Fire has a stop-work policy that would have prevented the training at 90-degree weather and that Fort Myers Fire did not have a similar policy. According to weather data, feel-like temperatures the day Nathaniel Wilcox died reached triple digits in Fort Myers.
According to the suit, Fort Myers Fire had no protocol for identifying candidates with sickle cell trait and no modified testing procedure or enhanced monitoring for such candidates in extreme heat.
When Fort Myers Fire cleared Nathaniel Wilcox for the training, the complaint says, the medical clearance “contained no reference to outdoor conditions, ambient temperature, humidity, heat index, or the fact that testing would occur at 3:30 p.m. on a July afternoon in Southwest Florida.”
According to the lawsuit, written instructions distributed to the test proctors on July 2, 2024, directed them to pause testing only if it rained severely and contained no reference to heat monitoring, heat-illness recognition or cooling protocols.
Once Nathaniel Wilcox began to show signs of heat illness, the lawsuit says, rather than placing the firefighter supine with his legs elevated as the City’s Employee Safety Program directs, Nathaniel Wilcox “was placed in a seated position against a wall, worsening his circulatory compromise.”
When first responders arrived about 4:12 p.m., the complaint says, Nathaniel Wilcox’s skin was documented as hot, dry, and pale, “consistent with advanced heat stroke, with a blood pressure of 88/50 and a pulse of 138.”
Nathaniel Wilcox died at Gulf Coast Medical Center, in Fort Myers, about 6:41 p.m.
Medical examiner refuses case
The lawsuit says the Lee County Medical Examiner’s office declined to take Nathaniel Wilcox’s case.
The family retained Dr. Rebecca MacDougall, an independent forensic pathologist, who performed a private autopsy. She concluded Nathaniel Wilcox died from complications of heat-related illness in the setting of physical activity.
Prior local athlete’s death referenced
The lawsuit also lists the case of a Lee County student-athlete who nearly a decade ago died under similar circumstances.
In response to the 2017 heat-stroke death of Zachary Tyler Martin Polsenberg, a Lee County student-athlete, the Legislature amended the Florida Statutes, effective July 1, 2020, to require, for school athletic activities, cold-water immersion or equivalent cooling, heat stress monitoring, written guidelines for modifying or suspending activityat defined heat levels, on-site cooling before transport, and annual heat illness training.
City officials decline response, offers condolences
“The City of Fort Myers extends its condolences to the Wilcox family,” Noelle Casagrande, city spokesperson, wrote in a July 14 emailed statement. “Because this matter is now the subject of active litigation, the city is unable to comment further.”
“He was known as a very enthusiastic, very loving people person, as well as had a love for animals,” McMillion said of Nathaniel Wilcox following his death. “His mom shared with me he once said if he ever won the lottery he’d open up an animal shelter and actually put a place where he’d actually house people and feed people.”
Tomas Rodriguez is a Breaking/Live News Reporter for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press. You can reach Tomas at TRodriguez@usatodayco.com or 772-333-5501. Connect with him on Threads @tomasfrobeltran, Instagram @tomasfrobeltran, Facebook @tomasrodrigueznews and Bluesky @tomasfrodriguez.
This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Family sues city of Fort Myers after firefighter’s death
Reporting by Tomas Rodriguez, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News / Fort Myers News-Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Tomas Rodriguez, Fort Myers News-Press & Naples Daily News | USA TODAY Network
