The family of a firefighter applicant who died after collapsing during a pre-employment physical abilities test has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the City of Fort Myers, alleging that the City required candidates to complete a physically demanding evaluation outdoors in extreme heat without adequate safeguards to prevent heat illness.

The suit was filed on July 7, 2026, by Jennifer Wilcox, the mother of Nathaniel Wilcox, who died on July 9, 2024, after participating in a firefighter hiring assessment conducted by the Fort Myers Fire Department. The complaint asserts claims for negligence resulting in wrongful death and negligence per se resulting in wrongful death.

Nathaniel Wilcox was reportedly a 22-year-old former college football player who was “was physically active and athletically accomplished, and had no significant cardiac or pulmonary history.” Quoting from the complaint:

• Nathaniel applied for an open firefighter position with the City of Fort Myers and received an invitation to participate in the mandatory pre-employment Physical Assessment Evaluation (PAE) administered by FMFD.
• The PAE was scheduled for 3:30 p.m. on July 9, 2024, during the peak heat of the day, at FMFD Station #11, located at 2033 Jackson Street, Fort Myers, Lee County, Florida.
• The evaluation was administered, supervised, and controlled entirely by FMFD personnel acting within the course and scope of their employment with the City.
• The PAE consisted of an untimed 105-foot aerial ladder climb followed by seven timed firefighting-simulation tasks to be completed within ten minutes, a mandatory candidate-evaluation checkpoint, and navigation of a 24-foot confined-space prop.
• All tasks were performed outdoors, and all components after the ladder climb were performed while the candidate wore personal protective equipment and carried a self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) weighing approximately 22 to 25 pounds.
• On July 9, 2024, the ambient temperature in Fort Myers exceeded 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Certified weather data … documented a daily maximum temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit and a heat index reaching approximately 105 to 107 degrees Fahrenheit during the peak hours of the day.
• The PAE was not the Candidate Physical Ability Test (CPAT), the firefighter candidate evaluation jointly developed by the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the International Association of Fire Fighters and widely adopted as the industry standard for pre-employment physical screening. FMFD instead used a proprietary evaluation that, upon information and belief, involves more events and a longer duration than the CPAT and imposes greater physiological demands upon candidates.
• At all times material, the City of Fort Myers, acting through FMFD, owed Nathaniel Lee Wilcox a duty of ordinary care. When FMFD invited Nathaniel to its facility, directed him to perform maximal-exertion tasks in extreme heat, and assumed exclusive control over the conditions under which he would perform those tasks, it undertook a duty to exercise reasonable care for his safety.
• By requiring Nathaniel to perform maximal-exertion physical tasks in extreme environmental heat, while carrying protective equipment, at a time, place, and under conditions that FMFD alone selected and controlled, FMFD created a foreseeable zone of risk of serious bodily injury and death.
• Having created that risk and assumed control over the conditions that generated it, FMFD owed Nathaniel a common-law duty to exercise reasonable care to protect him against that risk, including the duty to guard against, and to respond appropriately to, the exertional and heat-related medical emergency that its own conduct made foreseeable.
• At or near the conclusion of the most physically demanding portion of the PAE, at approximately 4:00 p.m., Nathaniel reported shortness of breath and severe leg cramping. As he was assessed by FMFD personnel, he became increasingly confused and combative and was hypotensive and tachycardic, with altered mental status and diaphoresis.
• These are hallmark signs and symptoms of exertional heat stroke, a recognized life-threatening emergency, and were among the very life-threatening signs identified in FMFD’s own Procedure 905 as requiring transport to a medical facility.
• FMFD personnel failed to recognize the severity of Nathaniel’s condition, failed to connect his deterioration to the heat stress created by the environmental conditions and the physical work performed at FMFD’s exclusive direction and control, failed to implement any meaningful cooling intervention, failed to remove him from exertion and heat and position him appropriately, and delayed appropriate response.
• Rather than being placed supine with legs elevated as even the City’s own Employee Safety Program directs, Nathaniel was placed in a seated position against a wall, worsening his circulatory compromise.
• No core (rectal) temperature, the only temperature measurement reliable in suspected exertional heat stroke, was obtained in the field. A tympanic temperature of 97.8 degrees Fahrenheit recorded by FMFD was clinically unreliable, was contradicted by Nathaniel’s obvious signs and symptoms, and could not be used to exclude exertional heat stroke.
• The only cooling intervention attempted, a single ice pack applied at the neck, did not constitute a meaningful cooling intervention for a patient in suspected exertional heat stroke.
• Appropriate rapid whole-body cooling, by cold-water immersion or aggressive whole-body ice-water application, was never attempted.
• Emergency medical services with transport capability arrived from Lee County at approximately 4:12 p.m. By that time, Nathaniel’s skin was documented as hot, dry, and pale, consistent with advanced heat stroke, with a blood pressure of 88/50 and a pulse of 138.
• Upon being loaded into the ambulance, Nathaniel went into pulseless electrical activity, and cardiopulmonary resuscitation was initiated.
• Approximately 46 minutes elapsed between the onset of Nathaniel’s symptoms and his arrival at Gulf Coast Medical Center. On arrival he was in profound metabolic failure, with catastrophic acidosis and laboratory evidence of acute muscle, kidney, and cardiac injury and developing coagulopathy.
• His condition continued to deteriorate, and he was pronounced dead on July 9, 2024, at 6:41 p.m.

The complaint further alleges that Wilcox had a documented medical history placing him at risk for exertional collapse associated with sickle cell trait (ECAST), and that his collapse and death resulted from exertional heat stroke, ECAST, or a combination of the two.

According to the complaint, Fort Myers Fire had no protocol for identifying candidates with sickle cell trait, no modified testing procedures or enhanced monitoring for such candidates during extreme heat, and no process to advise applicants that the assessment would take place outdoors during a Southwest Florida summer afternoon. The complaint further alleges that written instructions provided to test proctors directed them to suspend testing only in the event of severe rain and contained no guidance concerning heat monitoring, recognition of heat illness, or emergency cooling procedures.

The complaint alleges that the Lee County Medical Examiner declined to accept the case, so Wilcox’s family retained forensic pathologist Dr. Rebecca MacDougall to perform a private autopsy. Dr. MacDougall concluded that Wilcox died from complications of heat-related illness associated with physical exertion.

The lawsuit also references the 2017 heat-stroke death of a Lee County high school athlete. According to the complaint, that incident led the Florida Legislature to enact heat-safety requirements for school athletic activities that took effect in 2020. Those requirements include heat stress monitoring, written guidelines for modifying or suspending activities based on heat conditions, annual heat illness training, cold-water immersion or equivalent cooling methods, and on-site cooling before transport. The complaint cites those statutory requirements as evidence that effective heat-illness prevention measures were well recognized before Wilcox’s assessment was conducted.

The lawsuit seeks damages for wrongful death based on the City’s failure to provide a reasonably safe physical assessment, failure to implement appropriate heat-related safety procedures, and failure to respond appropriately once he exhibited signs of heat illness.

Here is a copy of the complaint.