For more than a quarter-century, Merlin Casey's second home seemed to be a Mount Horeb Emergency Medical Service ambulance and his third home was the local fire station.
"When he was on duty, he used to sleep on an army cot at night," recalled Mount Horeb Fire Chief Chuck Himsel. "I don't think there's anyone around who loves fire equipment more than me, but you'd never find me spending the night on an army cot."
It may have been fitting, then, that Casey, 66, died Saturday night while participating in an ambulance call.
Himsel said Casey and other emergency medical technicians responded to a call to help an area woman who was having abdominal pain about 9 p.m. Saturday. Casey was driving the ambulance, as he often did.
When the other EMTs finished carrying the woman to the ambulance, they found Casey slumped over the steering wheel. They immediately started cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but Casey was pronounced dead at a Madison hospital.
Himsel said a backup ambulance took the woman to the hospital, while Casey's fellow EMTs transported him.
"As far as I know, this was the first on-duty death in the history of the Mount Horeb Fire Department," Himsel said Sunday.
Casey, a retired art teacher and audio-visual coordinator for Mount Horeb High School, was "practically a charter member of the EMTs," Himsel added. "We organized the unit in 1976, and I'm pretty sure Merlin joined during the first year."
Funeral arrangements are pending at the Ellestad Funeral Home in Mount Horeb.
