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Fire chief back and he's ready to roll
By DAN DeWITT BROOKSVILLE -- Brooksville Fire Chief Jim Daugherty returned to work Thursday, more than three months after heart surgery forced him off the job. "I'm back in full force and ready to roll," said Daugherty, 55. He said he had been aware that he had a faulty valve in his heart for several years, though the condition was never severe enough to keep him from his job. In the weeks before his surgery, however, his heart had become so inefficient that fluid was beginning to accumulate in his lungs. "This starts out as a very minor problem and it keeps increasing and increasing until it reaches a certain point," said Daugherty. "I thought I was coming down with pneumonia." Daugherty, a 27-year veteran of the Brooksville Fire Department, has been chief since 1999. He entered Brooksville Regional Hospital in late September and, when doctors decided he needed surgery to replace the valve, he was moved to Regional Medical Center Bayonet Point in Pasco County. His total stay in the hospital lasted about two weeks, Daugherty said. Most of the time since then he has been resting, which he said was beginning to get old. "A person can only sit at home and look out the window for so long," he said. Though his condition reached a crisis at the same time as the city and the county were fighting about fire protection, the two situations were not directly related, he said. The county decided to end a 34-year-old agreement that called for the city to cover the area of the county outside its limits. The city is contesting this decision in court. Daugherty did acknowledge, though, that general stress of his job contributed to ailment worsening. But after months of forced inactivity, he said, the demands of his work seem welcoming. "I just look forward to getting back and doing my job: replacing, repairing and doing whatever needs to be done around here," he said.
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From today's Hernando Times |
