WATCHING FIRE SAFETY
Videos warn of occupational cancer
When he sits in front of the video camera, Boston fire Lt. Glenn Preston won’t be thinking of the fears every firefighter thinks of on the job — the backdrafts, the floor collapses, the fire burning faster than it can be fought.
He’ll be thinking of his 7-yearold daughter, Sage, and how they share the same September birthday, and how instead of celebrating with her he’ll be in a hospital room preparing for a bone marrow transplant to fight the cancer that he got while facing down fires — and how his story can show his fellow firefighters what they could lose if they don’t take every precaution they can.
“They need to get it soaked in, maybe when they see me they’ll see how it’s affected me, how it’s affected my family; maybe that’ll hit home,” said Preston, who has four children.
“I can’t even give … (my daughter) a hug . ... If people see this kind of stuff, maybe that will get through their heads.”
Since 1990, nearly 200 Boston firefighters have died due to occupational cancer, according to Fire Commissioner Joseph Finn.
Studies show firefighters face an increased risk of cancer, including non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma — which put a baseballsized tumor in Preston’s chest a year ago and is now attacking the lining of his heart.
But Finn and the department have been fighting back, getting better air masks and industrial washing machines to scrub the soot off firefighters’ gear instead of letting it suffuse stations with more chemicals.
And they’ve created videos about the danger of occupational cancer and the importance of prevention that have been shared across the country.
“These videos, they’re incredibly powerful and really wellreceived,” said Emily Sparer, a Dana-Farber Cancer Institute research fellow who has been studying health conditions at Boston Fire Department firehouses.
“I’ve been contacted by folks in other departments saying, ‘We’re learning from Boston’ — we’re at the front of the pack.”
The department hired a production company to create its latest video, “Take No Smoke,” which will feature Dana-Farber doctors describing the effects of exposure to smoke and carcinogens over the course of a firefighter’s career and show 3-D imaging of how smoke affects their bodies.
But it also will show Preston and his family talking about how his cancer has affected their lives as a way to hammer home the danger, Finn said.
“It’s about changing that cultural machoism, if you will,” Finn said.
BFD culture is aggressive, Preston said, and he’s proud of how firefighters will rush into buildings to battle blazes and save lives.
Coming out covered in soot and sweat, knowing they put their bodies through an inferno but beat it back is a point of honor, and so is going to fight the next fire despite any pain.
That led Preston to ignore a pain in his chest for months, and his zeal for staying in a building as long as possible to search for people led him to conserve air by leaving his mask off for as long as possible.
Preston said the culture is changing, with firefighters required to wear hoods to keep off soot and with the city funding equipment such as tanks that hold more air.
“We have such good stuff now, there’s really no reason now not to protect ourselves,” Preston said. “We expose ourselves to danger, that’s what we do, but I think we can be safer as far as what we do when it comes to protecting ourselves from cancers.”
And Preston thinks he can get that message across to his brothers — that they can still save others while looking out for themselves and their families.
“The message is, you have to protect yourself,” Preston said.