LEWISTON — The body of Oxford Fire Chief Gary Sacco arrived Monday afternoon at a Lewiston funeral home.
Sacco, 63, died Sunday while attending the funeral of Capt. Joel Barnes of the Berwick Fire Department in Portland, according to Oxford fire officials.
Sacco was hired as Oxford’s fire chief in June 2017. Before that, he had served for 12 years as chief of the New Gloucester Fire Department. He had worked with fire and EMS departments since the mid-1970s.
Capt. John Brennan, a spokesman for the Portland Fire Department, said that at about 10 a.m. — an hour before the memorial service for Barnes was scheduled to begin — a Portland firetruck and ambulance responded to the area of the Holiday Inn by the Bay on Spring Street for a medical call. A person there was then transported by ambulance to Maine Medical Center, Brennan said.
The Holiday Inn by the Bay is a few hundred feet away from the Cross Insurance Arena, where the service for Barnes was held.
“The medical call did not happen during the memorial service. It happened outside,” Brennan said. “No one had to be taken out of the funeral.”
This story will be updated.
Portland Press Herald reporters Dennis Hoey and J. Craig Anderson contributed to this report.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.