The Palm Coast Fire Department is mourning the loss of Zachary Shane Mahaney, a 43-year-old former firefighter who spent a year with the department until last June. He died by a self-inflicted gunshot on Sept. 25 or 26 in Ormond Beach after going missing from his parents’ home on Sept. 25.
Mahaney, the father of two children, had a 12-year career with Sumter County Fire Rescue before taking the job as a firefighter-paramedic in Palm Coast.
“We are heartbroken to learn of Zach’s passing,” Lt. Patrick Juliano of the Palm Coast Fire Department wrote in a statement. “Zach’s smile and personality could light up a room. He was an admired husband, loving father, friend and brother to all those who he met.”
A resident of Seminole Woods, Mahaney had been staying at Bermuda Estates Apartments in Ormond Beach with his parents Rhonda and Robert Mahaney. His 70-year-old mother had reported him missing to Ormond Beach police the morning of September 26. She told police that he had recently lost his job and was separated from his wife, who lives in Palm Coast. Rhonda Mahaney told police Zach had been with her and his father for the past few weeks, and had been depressed. He had left home the previous evening at about 5 p.m. to buy cigarettes. He never returned.
According to the missing-person report, Rhonda Mahaney told police that “he has threatened suicide a few times in the last three months, but she never called as he always came home.” He owned several guns, she said, “and if they were not in his room, they would be with him in his truck.”
Mahaney was part of a class of eight new hires a the Palm Coast Fire Department in 2023 (he was hired that July). He did not make it past the probationary period every firefighter goes through, losing the job last June. As he saw it–as his mother described it to Ormond Beach police–he’d been “fired.”
Police officers reported Mahaney to a national database as missing and “endangered.” In early afternoon that day, Ormond Beach police responded to two residents’ 911 call about a gray Toyota truck they’d passed by that morning at the side of the road as they were riding their ATV in the 2300 block of Old Tomoka Road. It was still there when they left, they told police, with someone inside. Police investigated and found Mahaney. The medical examiner claimed the body for an autopsy. The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office was instructed to notify Mahaney’s wife in Palm Coast, though by the time deputies did so, she had learned of her husband’s death from a friend.
“Another brother firefighter lost to the mental health crisis,” James Geering, the former firefighter and podcaster of “Behind the Shield” posted on Wednesday. “This is yet another example of how we need to make drastic and courageous change in our profession. The way we’re doing it simply isn’t working.”
According to the statement issued by Juliano, Mahaney, who was known as Zach, was born in Echo Ridge, New Mexico. He graduated from Lake Brandley High School in Altamonte Springs in 1998, and moved to Flagler County in 2004. He graduated from Daytona State College with his Firefighter Certification in 2009, EMT Certification in 2010 and Paramedic Certification in 2020.
Mahaney also had an associate degree in Emergency Medicine from Daytona State College and a bachelor’s degree in Emergency Management from Waldorf University. He rose to Lieutenant in Sumter County. He had instructor certifications in USAR and HAZMAT, and Live Fire Training. The Palm Coast Fire Department hired him on June 26, 2023. He lost the job last June 14. Of his two children, his 14-year-old son was from a previous marriage that ended in 2011.
