Firefighter Mitch Lundgaard: Saved a Life, Lost His Own

Mitch Lundgaard showed up to a bus on an ordinary shift. A man was unresponsive, possibly seizing. Paramedics administered naloxone, and the man regained consciousness. What happened in the next few minutes would end Lundgaard's life and change his family's forever.

As responders spoke with the patient after he came to, the man reached for a concealed handgun and opened fire. Lundgaard, a 14-year veteran of the Appleton Fire Department, was shot and killed. Police officers returned fire. The shooter, later identified as Ruben Houston, 47, died from his injuries. A 30-year-old bystander named Brittany Schowalter was caught in the crossfire, shot in the head and leg, and suffered a traumatic brain injury.

An autopsy confirmed Houston had methamphetamine, fentanyl, and a fentanyl metabolite in his system at the time of the shooting.

He Should Not Have Been There

What makes this story even harder to sit with is what came before the shooting. Ruben Houston had been released from the Fond du Lac County Jail just days earlier on a $500 bail. He had a record that included over half a dozen state and federal charges.

The District Attorney's office, led at the time by Eric Toney, did not object to that bail amount. A review later found that Houston's full criminal history had not been discovered before the bail decision was made. Days after his release, Lundgaard was dead.

Lundgaard was the first Appleton firefighter to die in the line of duty in 86 years.

What His Family Did Next

His widow's words in the aftermath became the clearest measure of who Mitch Lundgaard was. "We just really tried to focus on the positives and moving forward as much as we possibly can," she said. "That's the way we are as a family. That's the way I am. That's the way Mitch was. We're not going to sit and dwell on this. We're going to honor and remember him and bring him with us as we move forward."

The family founded the Lundgaard Love Foundation, which has donated bleeding control kits to school districts in the area, including the Kimberly School District where his three sons attend. The foundation has now completed a second round of donations to local schools.

His Story Is Still Saving Lives

Mitch Lundgaard's death became part of a national NIOSH report on line-of-duty fatalities. That report is now used in training programs for firefighters and emergency responders across the country. The circumstances of that call on the bus, the response, the concealed weapon, the gap in situational awareness, are all studied so that other responders can go home at the end of their shifts.

He went to save a man's life. He did. And it cost him his own. His three sons are growing up in a school district equipped with bleeding control kits because their mother refused to let grief be the end of the story.