Excerpts from fosters.com:
Portsmouth (NH) Fire Lt. Russ Osgood was next to Firefighter Sarah Fox the day she died from cancer at Concord Hospital when he learned another fire brother, Jeff Bokum, had the disease as well.
The toll Osgood faced in that moment at the hospital was emotional, but a financial one came shortly after. Osgood and firefighters worked to raise thousands of dollars for Bokum’s out-of-pocket costs during his six-month battle as they had for Fox in the months before her death, cancer benefits not yet covered for fighters.
Tuesday will bring the passage of a law funding cancer treatment benefits Bokum and Fox went without before they died within a five-month span.
The bill will allow firefighter cancer treatment benefits to be funded through worker’s compensation as no funding mechanism was previously established by the Legislature. It’s passage will come 28 years after a law establishing a presumptive cancer law for firefighters was ruled unconstitutional because it lacked a funding mechanism, leaving firefighters with cancer to pay many costs out of pocket.
Firefighters had previously advocated for funding in Concord for years without success. The signing of the bill is meaningful not only to Portsmouth firefighters but to firefighters across the state.
Both the Bokum and Fox families struggled with finances as they worked to pay for treatment. Bokum went to MD Anderson Center in Houston, Texas, where he paid for for expensive treatment not covered by insurance on top of the cost of living in his temporary home.
Fox was raising three children, including two young twins, and was unable to contribute to her family’s business, which strapped the family. She also used all of her vacation time to deal with her treatment, and when she ran out, firefighters worked to swap shifts to help her. The creation of a leave bank for firefighters to donate leave time for other employees to use was also inspired by Fox.
Firefighters raised more than $100,000 over the course of a year and a half for Bokum and Fox. About 500 motorcyclists raised $25,000 in 2010 for the first annual Sarah’s Ride, which continues to this day. Donations big and small were received, from the large amount coming from Globe Manufacturing to $5 donations from lemonade stands run by kids.
Firefighters were well aware other states offered cancer benefits to firefighters and were frustrated that so much work was needed to pay for illness deemed work-related under law.
While losing Fox and Bokum was devastating for their fellow firefighters, their stories created awareness of firefighter cancer at a time when fewer people knew of their heightened risk. Firefighters have a 9 percent higher risk of being diagnosed with cancer and 14 percent higher risk of dying from cancer than the general U.S. population, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
