A veteran Hanover firefighter died after responding to a fire in West Manheim Township Saturday morning.
Around 9:30 a.m., Earl J. Shoemaker, 68, was the driver of Hanover Fire Department's Air 46 unit when the truck went off Brunswick Drive and into a field -- traveling as far as several hundred yards. Fire crews rushed to the scene, which was about a mile from where a home was reported to be on fire on Pumping Station Road.
Crews got Shoemaker out of the truck and onto a stretcher.
Ivan Cornwell, a troop master with Trail Life USA, was doing first aid training with middle and high school students a few hundred yards from the scene when he heard sirens. He and one other person went to assist a driver in the truck who, Cornwell said, was unconscious.
"We tried to get his attention and tried to get him to respond to us. Unfortunately, the driver's door was at about a 10-foot drop into a creek," he said. "Even with the ambulance workers, we had a difficult time getting him out of the vehicle."
About an hour later, Shoemaker was pronounced dead at Hanover Hospital, according to the York County Coroner's Office.