If the highest, hottest flames can’t melt the bond that connects firefighters, then cancer — which can be as insidious and incendiary as a fire itself — doesn’t stand a chance against the dedicated wave of red.
Two Racine County firefighters and their families are discovering how powerful that brotherhood can be as they battle recently discovered cancer.
Alex Hagen, who started with the Caledonia Fire Department last March, is fighting Ewing’s sarcoma, a type of bone cancer, while South Shore Fire Department firefighter Rudi Betancourt is battling Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which affects the lymph nodes.
Fire departments in Racine and Kenosha counties have rallied around the two men, organizing fundraisers, providing food, gas cards, rides to the doctor, and more important, moral support through some dark and difficult times. “It’s been overwhelming,” said Tina Walker, Betancourt’s mother. “It truly is a brotherhood. These men and women work long hours, they have their own families to take care of, and they still find time to help us. You have no idea what that means to u