KEARNEY, Neb. (AP) - As a member of the Kearney Volunteer Fire Department Kent Hergott has ridden in a fire truck too many times.
No ride has been more meaningful to him than the one he took last week when fellow firefighters escorted him home after he spent 46 days at CHI Health Good Samaritan in Kearney with COVID-19. He spent three weeks on a ventilator.
“It was a little touching,” Hergott, 38, told the Kearney Hub.
Around 11 a.m. on March 4, close to 30 firefighters and EMS personnel gathered at the hospital’s West Tower entrance to greet Hergott as he was released. Hergott was applauded as nursing staff wheeled him out of the hospital through the sliding glass doors and helped into one of KVFD’s ladder trucks.
It’s not the exit Hergott had planned. After being discharged Hergott intended to surprise firefighters at their monthly meeting Thursday, but firefighters beat him to the punch.
“I didn’t know they were going to do something that big,” said Hergott, who has been a firefighter for three years.
Hergott’s parents Roger and Joyce of Milan, Illinois, have been in Kearney since Jan. 19, a day after their son was admitted to Good Sam. Hergott’s sister, Amanda Hergott of Denver, came for his release today from the hospital.
Although other Kearney firefighters and administrative staff have had COVID-19, Hergott is the only one who has been hospitalized. Vaccinations have been administered to all paid fire department staff and volunteer firefighters who wanted them.
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