A community is mourning the loss of firefighter that died in the line of duty on Friday.
56-year-old Larry Millard of the Endeavor Fire Department was responding to a crash on Interstate 39 just after 4:00 p.m. on Friday. A driver did not see the firetruck and swerved to avoid it, and struck Millard. Millard died from his injuries at UW Hospital.
On Saturday,things were a little quieter at the Endeavor Fire Department. With heavy hearts, a crew was coming to terms, their brother is gone.
"Just the biggest heart you'd even see in a man," Endeavor-Moundville Fire Chief, Channing Bloss, said. "We're all torn, everybody here is his second family."
Larry Millard was a volunteer firefighter for 34 years, a job he truly loved.
"He was just really a special person. He passed away doing what he valued most in his life. He was out there protecting and helping," Milard's sister Cindy Marquardt said.
A fact his relatives say brings a bit of comfort in such a difficult time.
"Volunteer fire and paramedics go out and they save lives and then people call them heros. What do you call somebody that goes out and doesn't come back? Maybe a saint," Millard's brother-in-law, Carl Marquardt, said.