FLORENCE - If you live in Florence and you don't know Harry "Lucky" Moore Sr., you probably haven't lived here too long.
Lucky's everywhere. At 77, he's the Siuslaw Fire Department's oldest volunteer. And when he's not running a fire truck, Lucky often travels from construction site to construction site in Florence, where he appoints himself an unofficial watchdog, and points out any flaws he might consider important.
Everybody knows Lucky. So when he collapsed in cardiac arrest at a house fire Tuesday night, everybody found out quickly.
"It was like losing one of your own, right there in front of your eyes," deputy fire chief Marvin Tipler said. As of late Wednesday, he was still fighting, in a hospital bed at Peace Harbor Hospital.
Janet Huston, the fire department's office administrator, was so busy fielding phone calls from worried firefighters that she didn't get to grab lunch until late afternoon.
"He's been with this department since 1974," said Huston, when she had a chance to catch her breath. "Every time he comes by, he brings cute little jokes for me to read.
"He's a super nice man."
He's also lucky, if you think about it. What are the chances he'd be a few feet from a defibrillator and right next to a paramedic when his heart stopped?
The fire, on 31st Street in Florence, began when a cat apparently knocked a lighted candle onto a bed, Battalion Chief Bob Sneddon said.
Since he lives three blocks from the fire station, Lucky was one of the first men to arrive, which is typical. But after he got there and began tending an engine, Lucky collapsed.
"He fell over backward," Fire Chief John Buchanan said. "We were able to open his airway and defibrillate him within a minute or so."
Lucky spent the night in the intensive care unit at Peace Harbor Hospital. By Wednesday afternoon, he'd been able to breathe on his own, Buchanan said.
"He's ornery enough, he's probably going to do fine," Buchanan said.
Lucky originally joined the fire department in the 1960s, before leaving the area for a few years to work in Alaska. When he returned, the following decade, he and his son, Harry Moore Jr., signed up as volunteers.
A former printer for the Siuslaw News, Lucky spent much of his free time at the fire station. He was on most calls within two minutes, said Skip Passenger, the department's former chief.
Known for his mental library of jokes, Lucky has a crust to him, Sneddon said.
"Lucky can be kind of a rough, crotchety character," he said. "But he's one of those lovable rough, crotchety characters."
When he's not fighting fires, he's watching construction projects. Lucky just can't get enough of construction, apparently. Sometimes he'll just sit in his white Chevy S-10 pickup and watch. Sometimes the crew will invite him onto the site, even hire him on as security.
"When we were building the new fire hall, he saved us some money" by spotting potential problems, said Rick Gehlke, the captain at Lucky's station - Bay Street Station 2. "He just wants to make sure the job's done right."
Lucky's also a volunteer with the Oregon State Police, patrolling beach overlooks to prevent the all-too common car break-in.
But his real passion is firefighting. Passenger said he's had to retire a few volunteers as they got on in age, even if they were reluctant to quit. And he's wondered whether it's time for Lucky to hang up his fire hat, too.
"But he's just one of the guys you weren't going to do it to, not until you absolutely just had to," Passenger said. "Once firefighting gets in your blood, you're hooked. You've had it."
Late Wednesday, Harry Moore was listed in "serious, but stable" condition, according to the charge nurse.
Firehouse.com Update: Fire department office administrator Janet Huston said Lucky was still stable and doing well at the hospital Thursday evening. "He's talking and he's not on a ventilator anymore," she said. "He's still a little fuzzy about what happened but he's doing really well."
