Deaths of 3 Syracuse firefighters spark mass cancer screening in city fire department
Updated 9:24 AM;
Today 9:00 AM
Syracuse firefighters put out a blaze on the corner of Fitch and Geddes streets in Syracuse on Feb. 19. Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com
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Syracuse, N.Y. – Firefighters didn’t worry about getting cancer when Tim Downes joined the Syracuse Fire Department in 1985.
He’d wear a helmet and other gear caked in soot, carbon and other toxic residue from fires and think nothing of it. “You were supposed to be salty,” he says.
But in 2008 Downes was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, part of the body’s germ fighting network. He suspects all the toxic chemicals he was exposed to in the line of duty may have caused his cancer. Downes went through 2 ½ years of treatment and is cancer-free today.