The Lehigh County Coroner has released his findings of an autopsy performed on the two firefighters that died from their injuries in a Schuylkill County Fire.
Around 3:45pm, Wednesday, emergency personnel were called to 1121 Clamtown Road/Route 443, West Penn Township, near Tamaqua for a structure fire with possible entrapment.
An hour into the incident, two maydays, received from New Tripoli Firefighters Marvin Gruber, 59, and Assistant Chief Zachary Paris, 36, from the second floor. The RIT on scene went into the blaze to rescue the two firefighters, who were then transported to the St. Luke's Miners Hospital in Coaldale.
Gruber and Paris would both pass away from their injuries and would be pronounced by Schuylkill County Deputy Coroners Ken O'Reilly and Andrew Szczyglak.
On Thursday, their bodies were transported from the Schuylkill County Coroner's Office in New Philadelphia to the Lehigh County Coroner's Office in Allentown.
On Friday, Lehigh County Coroner Daniel A. Buglio performed the autopsies and ruled the cause of death for both men as Asphyxia and Thermal Injuries due to the house fire.
Buglio also stated that he will be ruling the manner of death for both firefighters as "Pending Investigation" due to the ongoing fire and active scene investigation.
On Friday afternoon, West Penn Township Police did not reveal any new information on the investigation but did issue the following statement.
"We are sorting, evaluating, and processing all the evidence and conducting interviews. There is no change in status of the incident. It continues to be an ongoing investigation. There will be no further updates until Monday."