Station 103 is down a hero
Kingwood captain and 29-year veteran is HFD’s first COVID-19 casualty
Leroy Lucio wasn’t ready to retire from the Houston Fire Department, his employer for the past 29 years. He wanted to work as a firefighter for one more year.
A former colleague said Lucio, 62, was recently rethinking that plan at a San Antonio hospital, where he was being treated for the novel coronavirus. He died Monday — the first HFD member with the virus to do so — after testing positive during the Father’s Day weekend.
“He told me that if he made it through this, he would seriously think about retiring,” said Michael Roberts, who retired in June from Station 103 in Kingwood where Lucio also worked.
First responders have been especially hit hard by the global contagion. The captain was among at least 189 firefighters who had contracted the virus since the start of the pandemic in March, officials said. Most of the employees have returned to work and stations continue
to be staffed as possible contact with the virus has forced 190 other firefighters to quarantine. Within the Houston Police Department, 375 officers have contracted the virus, officials said.
Lucio worked with three other firefighters who included Roberts. Two of those crew members also tested positive for the virus but have since recovered.
Earlier in the pandemic, Roberts said he encouraged Lucio to retire with him. The two of them were at a higher risk for COVID-19 complications because of their age, he said.
“I wish I could have talked him into leaving when I left,” Roberts continued. “I told him, ‘We’re high-risk. We need to get on out of here and let these kids handle it.’”
But Lucio, who made the rank of captain in 2006, wanted to retire with three decades under his belt, he said. Roberts said he believes he avoided contracting the illness because he was out sick for most of the month. He stopped by the station on June 16 to hand over retirement papers and saw Lucio for the last time. That exchange was brief, he said.
That week, Lucio commuted back to his home in San Antonio — like he had always done during his HFD career — and fell ill, Roberts said. By Sunday, he was in an intensive care unit. Roberts and others were told to get tested.
Another member of Lucio’s shift, Mike Tullis, was hopeful that Texas was getting back to the normal. He had a vacation planned.
He chocked symptoms similar to a head cold to allergies or the Saharan dust cloud that was passing through the Houston area. That test proved otherwise.
“We all had COVID at the same time,” Tullis said.
“I spent 14 days in a horse trailer in my yard to stay away from everybody,” he said, adding that the trailer had a cabin with an air conditioner and shower. “That was the only place I could go to still visit with my family.”
The source of how Lucio and the two others wound up with the illness may never be known.
“Nobody has any idea,” Tullis said. “Anybody that you come in contact with, who you’re not with all the time, is a potential exposure.”
Tullis kept in touch with Lucio over text message because the captain was using a CPAP machine, a mask device that supplies steady air pressure.
“He’d tell me, ‘I’m still fighting. Trying to get over this,’” Tullis said.
Lucio never hinted at how precarious his condition was. Tullis returned to work on July 9 and his last message to the captain was sent July 14. Lucio never responded.
“He was a really nice gentleman,” Tullis said. “He was a professional first.”
In the wake of Lucio’s death, mask-clad firefighters at Station 103 on Tuesday morning paid tribute to him by adding a black strip of tape to the HFD logo on one of their engines. A locker with his name on it had been untouched.
Marty Lancton, head of the Houston Professional Firefighters Association, said Lucio’s death will be classified as a line-of-duty incident and funeral arrangements are still being finalized.
The family, he said, was grieving and had not yet issued a public statement. Lucio is survived by his wife, Eulalia, and three children, Andrew, Michael and Elaine.
In his own remarks, Chief Sam Peña said the department was saddened by Lucio’s death.
“Our hearts go out to his family, friends and the many lives he touched through his work in our community,” the chief said. “Such a kind person will be missed, but my faith comforts me that his work here on earth was complete and God called for him to be by his side as he watches over all first responders.”