Hammond Hospitalized with COVID

Hamilton County Sheriff Jim Hammond was hospitalized on Tuesday suffering with symptoms of COVID-19.

Sheriff Hammond tested positive for COVID last week but was asymptomatic. He was suffering from mild symptoms of the virus on Monday.

Chief Deputy Austin Garrett said that Sheriff Hammond was taken to a hospital, Tuesday afternoon, and that he asked to stay overnight for treatment.

Garrett said Sheriff Hammond was doing OK but that he was suffering from body aches and other symptoms associated with COVID-19.

“I have been and continue to be in direct contact with the Sheriff,” Garrett wrote in a press release. “He remains in good spirits and greatly appreciates all the thoughts, prayers and support he continues to receive from the citizens of Hamilton County.”

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.