At age 44, there are days when Virginia Beach Fire Captain Matt Chiaverotti doesn't have the energy to pick himself up from his recliner that sits by his living room window.
Cancer is making him weak.
On Aug. 23 of last year, he got a grim diagnosis: late-stage anaplastic thyroid cancer, a rare disease making up 1% to 2% of thyroid cancer cases.
"It started in my thyroid [and] looked like it spread to my lungs and other spots," Chiaverotti said. "They ended up finding it days later in my brain."
He is not alone. Four other Virginia Beach firefighters are currently battling or recently battled cancer.
All five worked what has been dubbed the “Good Friday Miracle,” a Navy FA-18 jet crash nearly 11 years ago into the Mayfair Mews Apartments on Good Friday 2012. It’s called a miracle because no one perished in the fiery collision that demolished the complex.