Firefighters can do more to protect themselves from getting occupational-related cancer, the Boston Fire Department preaches in a new video aimed at raising awareness and curbing deaths.
“We made this a priority,” Fire Commissioner Joseph Finn said in an interview with the Globe, “because of skyrocketing cancer rates within the department and the need for us to take some proactive steps to try to mitigate some of these cancers.” The video, posted on YouTube, features several fire officials, Mayor Martin J. Walsh, doctors, and firefighters discussing the imperativeness of the issue.
“You’re going to know more people that die of cancer from this job than die from running into a burning building,” Joseph Adduci, a Boston fire captain, said in the clip.
Firefighters face two times the cancer risk of regular residents, the video states, and 67 percent will face a cancer diagnosis at some point.
Adduci, himself a cancer survivor, is urging younger firefighters to take the proper precautions before and after battling a fire. “I was lucky they found mine early,” he said. “I have that in the back of my mind all the time, because if I had waited, I’d be on the my way to my deathbed right now, I can guarantee you that.”