Fallen Mineral Point firefighter laid to rest

MINERAL POINT, Wis. (WMTV) - One firefighter killed while responding to an incident on January 6 was laid to rest Wednesday with a funeral and fire department procession.

There is an empty space that 69-year-old Jim Ludlum left behind at the Mineral Point Fire Department.

“This is going to be a long process for them,” Iowa County Emergency Management Director Keith Hurlbert said. “I don’t know if we can put that into real good words for you. The outpouring support from the state of Wisconsin and other states. The emails, the phone calls, the texts messages have just been incredible.”

Dane County Fire Chiefs President Joe Pulvermacher, who is also the fire chief for the City of Fitchburg, shared that losing a member of the team is hard for a department to go through.

“They’ll always remember this. This will never go away,” Pulvermacher said. “Think about the members of the fire department who for whatever reason weren’t on that rig that day. This could happen to any one of my firefighters.”

Despite the tragedy, he shared that Wisconsin firefighters will continue to serve their communities.

“They’re good people doing the right things for the right reasons,” Chief Pulvermacher said. “Something bad happened and it affected them in a way that is really going to take sometime to heal.”

The other firefighter who died in Thursday’s Highway 151 crash was 43-year-old Capt. Brian Busch. His funeral service is on Friday.

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