Cancer kills firefighters – watch this message from Boston
In the past 25-years 160 Boston Fire Department firefighters have died from cancer. A firefighter from Boston gets a cancer diagnosis about every 2 and a half to three weeks. Last week, the Boston Fire Department debuted this video in an effort to get the message out.
Meghan E. Irons, The Boston Globe:
“It’s killing our members, simple as that,” Commissioner Joseph E. Finn says in the video. “The one thing that is going to kill firefighters more quickly than a building collapse, more quickly than getting trapped — it’s cancer.”
The video is part of Finn’s appeal to the city’s 1,400 firefighters to always wear their protective gear — including hoods and air masks — even as a blaze retreats and begins to smolder. Chronic exposure to heat and smoke toxins leaves firefighters vulnerable and at risk, officials said.
Finn commissioned the documentary, produced by Embryo Creative of Boston, as part of his safety, health, and wellness campaign. He also called on veteran members of the Fire Department living with cancer to help him.
Below is another important message about cancer prevention for firefighters from Bryan Frieders, a battalion chief in San Gabriel, California and president of the Firefighter Cancer Support Network.
