Medical problems plague firefighters who battled toxic Hamilton blaze

Ailing firefighter heroes seek help
Medical problems plague firefighters who battled toxic Hamilton blaze
May 4, 2006, Toronto Star, Page A4
PETER EDWARDS, STAFF REPORTER

HAMILTON—Nathan Shaw knew something was wrong when his dad came home from work in July 1997. "He had a giant rash on his neck," the 21-year-old says. "His face was tomato red. That's when his wheezing and coughing began, which he never had before."

Despite the symptoms, Capt. Bob Shaw of the Hamilton fire department returned to work the next day, and the day after that, until there were no more thick black plumes of chemical haze over the city's north end in what is considered the worst industrial fire in Canadian history.

Bob Shaw's wheezing and coughing finally ended two years ago, when he died at the age of 55 from cancer of the esophagus.

This morning, his son and 20 others related to sick and deceased Ontario firefighters are expected to be at a news conference at the Fire Fighters Memorial, at the northeast corner of College St. and University Ave. in Toronto, calling attention to what they say is a crying need for improved legislation concerning firefighters and industrial disease.

They are also expected to be in the Legislature in the afternoon, when Hamilton New Democrat MPP Andrea Horvath presents a private member's bill aimed at improving recognition of industrial diseases for firefighters.

At the time of Shaw's death, the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board had rejected the Hamilton Professional Fire Fighters Association's claim for compensation, saying his cancer could not be definitively linked to the toxic fire at Plastimet, a plastics and vinyl recycling plant.

However, the association notes that some 30 of the 294 firefighters who fought the Plastimet blaze suffer long-term medical problems, including a loss of the nasal passage lining, skin rashes, permanent lesions and chronic coughing.

"After the Plastimet fire, his health was never the same," Nathan Shaw says.

The Ontario Professional Fire Fighters Association estimates that two-thirds of firefighters will develop cancer in their lifetimes.

J. Henry Watson, president of the Hamilton association, notes that toxic blazes are a fact of firefighters' lives today, and no amount of preparation can make them totally safe.

Watson says he attended a funeral two weeks ago in Ottawa for firefighter Mark Johnston, who died after a four-year battle with colon cancer. He was 43.

At the time of his death, Johnston was trying to win recognition from the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board that firefighters are at a higher risk for colorectal cancer, and therefore deserving of compensation.

Nathan Shaw says toxin levels at the Plastimet fire were 66 times above the standard set by the provincial environment ministry, and Watson notes the toxic clouds there were so corrosive that a radiator fell off a new truck and a man's brass cufflinks turned green.

People who knew Bob Shaw say he loved his family and his health, and knew the Plastimet fire was potentially fatal.

However, neither Watson nor Nathan Shaw was surprised when he returned to fight the blaze until it was finally extinguished two days later.

"He didn't feel well but went to work because he felt he had to," Watson says. "He felt the guys were relying on him.... Bob would never ask me to do something he wouldn't do himself."

Shaw was a second-generation Hamilton firefighter. His father also died of cancer, which the family believes was work-related. Nathan Shaw, a McMaster University political science student, isn't sure what profession he wants to enter, but says he'd like to serve the community.

However, his mother has already made it clear she doesn't want her only child to follow in his father's footsteps.

There's now a park on Wellington St. N., at the old Plastimet site, where some 400 tonnes of recycled plastic car parts burned.

Nathan Shaw says he wants his father remembered as well, with legislation. "Losing my father is a difficult enough thing, but to have to fight for who he was, what he went through, is a very difficult thing for me and my mother to go through," he says. "He made the ultimate sacrifice as a firefighter.... It hurts for the province to say, `No, your father didn't die for that.'"

Nathan Shaw sometimes still talks of his father in the present tense. He often uses the word "hero." He takes a deep breath and speaks slowly as he talks of how he'll feel when the private member's bill is introduced today and he hears his father's name mentioned in the Legislature.

"Oh, that's too hard to put into words," he says. "His case and his suffering will help others down the road."