TAMPA, Fla. — A Senate and House bill proposed to protect firefighters diagnosed with cancer might not make it to the floor. It is the fourth time in as many years a bill like this has been introduced.
The bill would compensate firefighters who are battling cancer.
If a firefighter is diagnosed with cancer, his or her beneficiary could receive a one-time cash payout of $25,000. It would cut out the need to file a workman's comp claim. And for those firefighters who aren't participating in the employer-sponsored retirement plan, they would get at least 42% percent of their annual salary for the rest of their lives.
For Sonia Alcover, she can't believe the bill might not reach the floor, again.
"It's just to me, it is incomprehensible that you can have someone, a public servant, who gets paid nothing, compared to other careers, and they risk their lives every single day, and we question whether we should take care of them?" Alcover said. "We should be ashamed. The state of Florida should be ashamed."
Her husband, Ray Alcover, served 29 years as a Tampa firefighter before being diagnosed with brain cancer, one of the 21 cancers covered in the proposed bill.
“He passed away February 8 of 2015 and he was due to retire that same year, in September so he never got to enjoy his retirement," Alcover said. "Which was probably one of the hardest things as a wife to have to come to terms with. That’s it. You were thinking of all these things you were going to do when you retire. And getting to enjoy his grandchild. So it, that in itself was probably the worst that I had to deal with."
Cancer has been determined as the most dangerous threat for full-time firefighters.
According to the International Association of Fire Fighters, cancer caused 61% of line-of-duty deaths, and according to the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety, firefighters have a 9% higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer and are 14% more likely to die from it than the general public.
While it is clear firefighters are at an increased risk for certain types of cancer, more research on the matter needs to be carried out.
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