DE PERE, WIS. – De Pere Fire Rescue is taking a proactive approach to combating cancer risks.

Eric Johnson, Assistant Chief of Training & Safety for De Pere Fire Rescue, will be hosting a special Safety Stand Down this week.

Safety Stand Downs for fire departments originated in 2005 as a one-day event to cease training, and focus attention and efforts toward safety concerns that lead to Line of Duty Deaths (LODD).

Since then, the national Safety Standdown initiative has morphed into week-long exercises for departments, and support is offered for these efforts by over 20 different organizations.

This year, Safety Stand Down takes place June 16-22. This event highlights critical safety, health, and survival issues for the fire and emergency services. All departments and personnel are asked to take the week of June 16-22 to focus their attention on safety and health education and training. A week is provided to ensure all duty shifts can participate.

The theme of this year’s week-long Safety Stand Down is: “Reduce Your Exposure: It’s Everybody’s Responsibility.”

This theme is aimed at setting aside time to look at how departments can reduce the possibility of someone contracting cancer.

In all, it is reported that 60 percent of line-of-duty deaths are cancer related. Furthermore, firefighters have a 9-percent increase in contracting cancer, over the general public, and a 14-percent increase in dying from cancer over the general public.

This theme is especially poignant to De Pere’s crew members:

“We have had a line-of-duty death over the years, related specifically to contracting cancer,” Johnson said. “We have also had several members of our organization diagnosed with cancer.

Johnson and De Pere Fire Rescue will be using a “Lavender Ribbon Report,” which has 11 actions to help mitigate the risk of cancer, among other resources. These resources can be found at safetystandown.org.

Actionable steps that will be examined include everything from wearing protective equipment, procedures on clothe washing and showering; to the cleaning of equipment and vehicles, early detection programs, and much more.

“De Pere will cover much of this during the training, and analyzing what we can do to try to minimize the chances of someone contracting cancer,” Johnson said.

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De Pere Press Release. Published June 18, 2019