A Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue recruit died during a training exercise in August because he was exposed to a heat so intense that it started to melt one recruit's helmet and compelled three instructors to flee the building early, the Broward County Medical Examiner said Thursday.
Wayne Mitchell, 37, had two minor heart conditions that were undetectable when he was alive but that made him more susceptible to develop an abnormal heartbeat and contributed to his death, Dr. Joshua Perper said.
Sam Spatzer, a lawyer for Mitchell's widow, said the former lifeguard was a healthy, vigorous man who would not have died if the Fire-Rescue Department's training, conducted at the Resolve Fire & Hazard Response center in Port Everglades, had been safe.
"From our investigation, there seem to be a number of departures from accepted [training] standards," Spatzer said Thursday.
Moreover, Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue Chief Antonio Bared and his staff in charge of training knew about the problems.
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel obtained a copy of an anonymous letter outlining many of the hazards faced by Mitchell and his fellow recruits. The writer said he was a Miami-Dade firefighter.
"Depending on the attitude/temperament of the instructors on any given day, the recruits are constantly mentally and physically abused," the letter said.
"[One training officer] has said on many occasions that he will do whatever is necessary to hurt the recruits -- whatever it takes to make them quit. My main concern is that the gentlemen will not quit and something more serious will take place such as heat exhaustion, stroke, or even death."
The letter was written May 29 -- more than two months before Mitchell's death on Aug. 8.
Miami Dade Fire-Rescue spokesman Capt. Louie Fernandez acknowledged Thursday that department officials had received the letter. He could not offer many details on what happened after that.
"It was taken seriously, even though it was anonymous," he said. "I can tell you it was looked at. It was given very significant attention. But that's really all I can say, because it might be part of the investigation."
Mitchell's death is being investigated by the Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue Department, the Broward Sheriff's Office, the state fire marshal's office and federal safety officials.
Bared transferred all of the instructors out of the training division, but not until after Mitchell's death. He was prompted to do so after reading information collected by Broward Sheriff's Office homicide detectives, Fernandez said last month. Bared declined to divulge the contents of the report.
Mitchell and four classmates went through their first live-fire exercise the morning of Aug. 8. Donning full protective gear and breathing apparatus, they were supposed to make their way through a steel structure designed to simulate a burning ship.
Two other recruit groups had gone through before them. It was so hot inside the box during Mitchell's drill that three of the instructors bailed out early, Perper said. After that, four exhausted recruits, one of whom suffered a serious burn to his right hand, managed to make their way out of the building. Mitchell did not.
He got separated from the crew and collapsed inside the dark, smoky, sweltering building. Investigators have not yet said how much time passed before anyone discovered Mitchell was missing.
Two instructors went back into the building to find him, but it took them two passes to do so. Mitchell was still wearing his breathing apparatus, but he was in cardiac arrest. He also suffered burns to his hands and knees. He died a short time later at Broward General Medical Center.
His family's lawyer said the training instructors' macho, hard-driving attitude created a dangerous environment. Spatzer said he plans to prove that they showed "reckless indifference" for the recruits' safety.
"You shouldn't subject a trainee with the lowest level of knowledge to a boot camp-type atmosphere," Spatzer said.
"They wait for years, and when their number is called, they want to be firefighters. It's a passion, not a job," he said. "To expose them to these types of conditions is really the thrust of the problem ... You shouldn't have to put your life at unreasonable risk in a training drill."
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