SAN FRANCISCO, June 5 (UPI) -- A second San Francisco firefighter has died of injuries from a two-alarm house fire last week, officials said.
Anthony Valerio, 53, a firefighter and paramedic, died around 7:40 a.m. Saturday at San Francisco General Hospital, The San Francisco Chronicle reported.
His fellow member of Engine Co. 26, Lt. Vincent Perez, 48, died Thursday. The men were caught in sudden flames set off by superheated gases in the Diamond Heights home.
Valerio was already in cardiac arrest when he got to the hospital with burns, lung damage and other trauma, surgeon Andre Campbell said.
"We used every single possible thing that we could," Campbell said. " ... And we lost."
"In my 21-year career, we have never had two line-of-duty deaths from the same fire," said Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White said.
The department's last death on duty occurred in 2003, when a firefighter fell off a moving engine. The last death in a fire was in 1995.
The last single fire to kill more than one firefighter happened in 1946, the San Francisco Fire Department Museum says.
