MEXICO – Ever since she barely escaped from a house fire in Weld at the age of 7, Edith Wentzell has held firefighters in high regard.

That pride turned to surprise Monday afternoon when State Fire Marshal John C. Dean presented her with a $50,000 death benefit check for her husband, Harding, who died in the line of duty on May 5 while rushing to a fire at the Muskie Building on Congress Street in Rumford.

“Thank you very much!” Wentzell said. “Firemen are one of the most closely knit groups I know. If one hurts, they all hurt. If one dies, they all die a little bit. With folks like you behind them, we are all very fortunate. Thank you and God bless you.”

Three weeks before her husband died of a heart attack while driving, Wentzell said she was hospitalized with encephalitis, then suffered a grand mal seizure that left her wheelchair bound.

Harding Wentzell, who served 28 years with the Mexico Fire Department from 1971-1976 and from 1980 to 2003, was with her on May 5 when the department was toned to the Rumford fire. At the time of his death, he was captain of the department’s fire police, handling traffic control.

“He loved that job. He was with me that morning and he didn’t know if he should leave me, but I told him he should go to the fire. He was going to what he loved. He was such a wonderful husband. One in a million,” Edith Wentzell said.

With her at the station Monday was her son Gary, who is Mexico’s fire chief, and daughter Eileen. Gary Wentzell said that since his father’s death, his mother has been having a difficult time because his parents didn’t have a lot of money.

They had also been denied a federal death benefit for public safety officers because unlike Maine’s death benefit law for emergency personnel survivors, the nation’s Public Safety Officers Benefits Program doesn’t cover heart attacks in the line of duty.

“We never expected to get it, because we’ve already been denied one check,” Gary Wentzell said. “But this check will make her next few years more livable because she won’t have to skimp so much. My mother will be more able to stay at home now.”

Edith Wentzell said that receiving the $50,000 check was like getting a new lease on life.

“I haven’t been well at all. But this check has made me able to live outside of a nursing home. It means my life and I just appreciate it so much. I’m so fortunate it’s unbelievable,” she said.

Monday’s death benefit check to Edith Wentzell was the first such check presented in Maine, the result of legislation passed three years ago by the 120th Legislature, said Sen. Bruce Bryant, D-Dixfield.

“This is a tough thing to have to do to hand out a check when you know the consequences, but it shows that the Maine Legislature is progressive in thinking of a way to take care of their people,” Bryant said.

Dean said Maine leads the nation in providing a death benefit for the survivors of police officers, firefighters and emergency medical services people who die in the line of duty.

“Maine is forward thinking on this to recognize the efforts of its public safety people who have died in the line of duty,” Dean said.

As a result of Maine’s death benefit legislation, Dean said the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are now considering changing the federal death benefit law to more closely follow Maine.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

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