Houston firefighter embodied kindness and strength
Kevin Leago died on Thursday morning at age 40. An 18-year veteran of the Houston Fire Department, he was a nurse, a husband and a father.
Over the past year, I’ve written about his struggles to fight cancer and city providers reluctant to provide care. With his help, we told readers how the Houston Fire Department’s safety procedures lagged behind industry standards and how fire unions believe cities across the state are willfully misinterpreting a state law meant to protect first responders.
We reported that during a six-year period ending in 2018, 91 percent of workers compensation cancer claims filed by Texas firefighters were denied. Even as his neuroendocrine cancer became more aggressive, Kevin continued to fight City Hall to receive benefits — and won.
He was also one of the kindest people I have ever known.
I first met Kevin last June while researching a story on HFD’s lack of equipment to clean dangerous chemicals off firefighters’ bunker gear. I talked to four firemen with cancer, mostly in their late 40s or 50s. Kevin was exceptionally polite on the phone, alternating between “yes, sir” and “no, sir.” He sounded young. I asked his age. He said 38, but was diagnosed when a doctor accidentally discovered a tumor on his pancreas when he was 32. I was floored. I circled the number in my notes.
The article ran. He was a background source, a crucial but minor character. I sensed there was a more important story to tell, so I asked Kevin if we could have lunch. We met at an Outback Steakhouse off I-10 in Baytown. His medication was too strong for him to safely drive so his wife Breck joined. They recounted how Kevin’s workers’ comp claim had been denied by the city, how as a result he was unable to seek the treatment his doctors recommended and how his sick time would soon run out, leaving him with no income. Then Kevin offered to pick up the check. (I declined.)
I left with a standing invitation to visit the family ranch in Winnie. Photographer Elizabeth Conley and I went on a warm July evening. We met Kenzi, their shy 5-year-old who wore a pink bow in her hair, Breck’s parents, and the cows, pig and rest of the menagerie out by the barn.
Kevin talked about how grateful he was for his supportive family and to his Station 29 buddies, who donated their sick time so he could remain employed.
Elizabeth shot portraits of the family. Kevin held his daughter in his arms. He had told me the chemotherapy left him so sore it was difficult for him to pick her up.
That story ran on the front page on Sunday, Aug. 12. It spurred calls for the Legislature to strengthen state law to ensure firefighters with cancer receive workers’ comp benefits. In June, lawmakers did so, listing 11 specific cancers that must be covered.
In August I got a call from Kevin’s lawyer, Mike Sprain. A three-judge panel reversed Houston’s denial and awarded Kevin workers’ comp benefits and $60,000 in back pay. Most importantly, Kevin could now transfer to the world-renowned MD Anderson Cancer Center, which his doctors had recommended a year earlier. I called Kevin, who was ecstatic.
“If something happens, my family will be taken care of now,” he said. “It’s a ton of weight taken off of me.”
Two months passed. No news, I hoped, was good news. Then I received an email from Kevin’s mother-in-law at the end of October. She said his prognosis had worsened.
I visited Kevin a final time just before Thanksgiving when he had an appointment at MD Anderson. He looked gaunt and struggled to walk. He drifted in and out of lucidity. Kevin told me he just wanted to hold on as long as he could to build up his pension benefits for his family.
He died at home, on his slice of heaven in the Texas countryside, six days later. I am heartbroken for his family.
I cover government and policy in the third-largest county in the United States. I write stories about grifters, questionable campaign donations and the murky intersection of gambling and politics. In our world, almost every source is working an angle.
Kevin could not have been more different. He was gracious and allowed us to tell an intimate story of a young family blindsided by cancer. Kevin placed tremendous trust in us to respectfully capture vulnerable moments and to use his story to illustrate the plight of scores of firefighters across Texas. For that I will be forever grateful.