{"id":118509,"date":"2026-02-19T23:14:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/118509\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T23:14:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T23:14:06","slug":"off-duty-nurse-honored-for-rushing-to-help-fight-lvh-dickson-city-fire-poconos-and-coal-region","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/118509\/","title":{"rendered":"Off-duty nurse honored for rushing to help fight LVH-Dickson City Fire | Poconos and Coal Region"},"content":{"rendered":"

DICKSON CITY, Pa. \u2013 A registered nurse at LVH-Cedar Crest who’s also a volunteer firefighter is getting the recognition he deserves after rushing to the fire that broke out at the orthopedic institute at Lehigh Valley Hospital-Dickson City<\/a> in Lackawanna County earlier this month.<\/p>\n

On February 4, David Spalding was sitting at home in Upper Macungie when an alert came on his phone.<\/p>\n

“\u2018Possible structure fire at Dickson City hospital\u2019, obviously piqued my interest,” Spalding said.<\/p>\n

Spalding is a registered nurse in the transitional open-heart unit at LVH-Cedar Crest and a volunteer firefighter.<\/p>\n

“I’m still a member of the troop in the Olyphant Fire Department,” he said. “I went to school at Penn State Scranton, and I joined the fire department up there.”<\/p>\n

He quickly knew it was a large-scale fire, so he hopped in his car and drove over an hour to the fire station.<\/p>\n

“I knew that it was my place of employment,” said Spalding. “I felt a duty to get up there and help them anyway that I could.”<\/p>\n

He was quickly dispatched to the scene. “As I went around the back of the building where the orthopedic section was and saw the fire, my heart sank a little bit, I just saw the amount of extensive damage,” said Spalding.<\/p>\n

The orthopedic institute attached to the hospital was a total loss; Spalding focused on helping to save the main hospital. He said, “I went up to the roof, and I helped a man with a chainsaw just looking for any extension that was in the building.”<\/p>\n

His hard work paid off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe status of the building today is that we reopened just a few days after the fire. We have reopened our emergency department,” said Bob Begliomini, President of Jefferson Health, Lehigh Valley Region.<\/p>\n

Begliomini said they are now trying to relocate the orthopedic institute to a temporary location.<\/p>\n

Spaulding’s hard work, both as a fire fighter and nurse, has not gone unnoticed.<\/p>\n

“We’re so proud of him,” said Begliomini. “He should be proud of himself, and he really helped save our hospital, as he saves life as a critical care nurse.”<\/p>\n

Spalding said it’s just his calling.<\/p>\n

“It’s a privilege to wear this uniform, it’s a privilege to wear the scrubs at work,” he said. “It’s just a privilege to take care of people.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DICKSON CITY, Pa. \u2013 A registered nurse at LVH-Cedar Crest who’s also a volunteer firefighter is getting the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118510,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[56211,26030,422,8631,56213,6111,56212,49547,17023,178,180,179,2404],"class_list":{"0":"post-118509","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-david-spalding","9":"tag-emergency-response","10":"tag-fire","11":"tag-firefighter","12":"tag-heroism","13":"tag-hospital","14":"tag-lvh-dickson-city","15":"tag-nurse","16":"tag-recognition","17":"tag-scranton","18":"tag-scranton-headlines","19":"tag-scranton-news","20":"tag-volunteer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118509\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}