Watch: Paulding Firefighter Who Suffered Heart Attack Comes Home

DALLAS, GA — A Paulding County firefighter who suffered a heart attack while battling a blaze is out of the hospital and back home.

Sgt. Kevin Van Dyke, 41, went into cardiac arrest on Oct. 5 while helping fight a fire in Hiram on a tractor-trailer that had burst into flames and was believed to be carrying flammable liquid.

On Wednesday, Paulding County Fire/Rescue announced that, after 13 days, Van Dyke had been released from Kennestone Hospital, where he had been in intensive care and was listed, initially, in critical but stable condition.

A video the fire department shared to Facebook shows Van Dyke being escorted to his home by fire trucks, sheriff's office and police cars and other vehicles from his crew at Fire Station #1 in Dallas. He is greeted in his front yard by his family, then shakes hands and shares hugs with fire officials and fellow firefighters.

An online fundraiser has been started to help pay for Van Dyke's medical costs. On Wednesday afternoon, the campaign on GoFundMe had raised $6,250 of a $7,000 goal. (SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

It was about 9:14 p.m. on Oct. 5 when Van Dyke suffered the heart attack, fell unconscious and stopped breathing. His fellow firefighters established that he still had a pulse and began giving Van Dyke CPR.

A defibrillator was used to shock Van Dyke's heart back into a normal rhythm, fire officials said. He was taken to Paulding Hospital, where he was stabilized, then to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta. Days after the heart attack, Van Dkye had remained on a ventilator at the hospital.

Firefighters had been called at 8:41 p.m. to reports of a tractor-trailer on fire at 3807 Atlanta Hwy. in Hiram. Callers to 911 said there were placards on the truck saying that it was carrying flammable liquids.

Firefighters, including Van Dyke's Engine 1 team, discovered the truck heavily engulfed in flames.

Photo courtesy Paulding County Fire/Rescue