Daughter can’t commemorate firefighter who died of cancer
Woman who tried for 8 years to get dad’s name memorialized isn’t giving up the fight
For 36 years James Kenneth O’Halloran worked out of Etobicoke to fight fires in the city, risking his life for others everyday, his daughter Kerry said.
To see that his legacy is memorialized, Kerry has been trying, for about eight years, to get his name etched into a wall that pays tribute to firefighters who died on the job or due to work-related illness.
But there’s a snag: her father’s death record says he died of penile cancer, an error she says robbed the family of the chance to honour O’Halloran’s name.
“That’s not one of the cancers that qualifies him for a WSIB claim,” she said, adding that she had been denied in 2012.
Kerry’s father, “Ken,” did, indeed, have penile cancer, but it went into remission, she said. In 2003, he was diagnosed with testicular cancer and was told he had two months to live. This disease is accepted by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB), said Frank Ramagnano, president of the Toronto Professional Firefighters Association.
“(The illness) has to be recognized,” Ramagnano said, “which, in our case, is WSIB. Testicular (cancer) is because of the bunker gear and the heat build up.”
There are two firefighters memorials in Toronto; the city’s is at a station at Harbourfront; the provincial counterpart is near Queen’s Park.
Twelve cancers are accepted by the WSIB as diseases that probably developed on the job, said Ramagnano, who added that the categories are predicated on a large body of scientific data on workplace hazards.
“It’s not like anyone is saying ‘no’ to (Kerry’s) father; it’s been determined by the experts that it wasn’t work-related,” Ramagnano said, referring to penile cancer.
“A lot of people get cancer, but not all of them are job-related. We want to make sure that the people that get on (the memorial) are all on it for the right reasons.”
Kerry O’Halloran hasn’t given up. She said she gave permission to the association to act on her behalf to request medical records to prove Ken died of testicular cancer, she said.
“When it gets those medicals, I may have a leg to stand on,” she said.
“Whether it’s penial (or penile) cancer, or testicular cancer, lung cancer, whatever kind of cancer it is, it’s cancer, and, if it’s job-related, it should be recognized. I don’t know how they pick and choose which cancers are so-called eligible. You think all cancer should be treated in the same way. It kills you.
“I don’t know if this was job-related, but he was not a healthy human being,” said O’Halloran, who added that her father suffered a pair of strokes and had to have a tumour removed from his stomach.
Ramagnano confirmed he is aware of O’Halloran’s request. He noted that the association, along with its partners, will help her “for free” to file a claim with the WSIB.
“I cannot get (Ken) on the wall, unless I can prove that it was job-related,” he said.
Ken O’Halloran began as a volunteer firefighter in 1953, and worked his way up the ranks. When he retired, he was district chief in Etobicoke, Kerry said.
He was involved in battling fires in Mississauga, too, including, in 1979, an explosive conflagration stemming from a derailment of a train carrying poisonous chemicals, she said.
“I just always remember being so proud of him,” she said. “My mom and I ironing his shirts and him going out to work. He was my hero.”
Neighbourhood children called Ken, “Uncle Pal” because he was “everybody’s buddy,” Kerry O’Halloran said.
Towards the end of his life, Ken O’Halloran got about in a wheelchair after a stroke left him paralyzed on the left side of his body. It didn’t hamper his big personality, his daughter said; he was known to park himself on the driveway and wave to passing cars.
“My intention through all of this is to just get him on the wall.”