A volunteer firefighter killed in the line of duty 91 years ago is being honored after a storyteller located his long-lost grave in West Prestonsburg last month.
Milt Nelson was a firefighter in Prestonsburg in 1935 when he responded to a Feb. 3 fire that tore through six buildings in the city. Reports say the fire triggered an explosion, sending a pipe from one of the buildings into Nelson. The impact carried him 100 feet and killed him immediately.
Nelson is the Prestonsburg Fire Department’s only recorded line-of-duty death. The department discovered that designation several years ago and soon realized his grave, like his story, had been lost to time.
After seeing her recent work on social media, Captain Tyler Sparks reached out to Shannon Deskins, an Appalachian storyteller and former journalist, for help locating the burial site.
“Captain Sparks reached out to her and said, ‘Hey, we think he might be buried in West Prestonsburg. If you can find that grave, we would really appreciate it.’ It wasn’t a couple days later she found the grave,” said Celina Thomas, chief of the Prestonsburg Fire Department.
WKYT-TV CBS 27 Lexington
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