Firefighters can face many risks. This includes risks of exposure to toxic chemicals. Today’s firefighters can encounter a wide range of toxic fumes on the job. One thing contributing to this is that today’s furniture contains all kinds of materials, finishes, glues and resins that can generate such fumes when burned.
Toxic fumes can not only be present when a fire is raging, but also after it has been put out. So, it can be important for fire departments to have appropriate safety policies for chemical exposure prevention both during and after fires.
In your opinion, how good of a job do California fire departments do when it comes to protecting firefighters from toxic exposure?
Chemical exposures on the job site could put firefighters at risk of developing diseases. This includes cancer.
Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for firefighters to get cancer. This can be seen in research done by Public Safety Medical.
This study looked at firefighters between 1985 and 2013. The study found that 857 of the 2,818 firefighters looked at ended up developing malignant cancers. Around three out of ten of those who developed cancer died.
Now, many different things can cause cancer and similar serious diseases. This can create difficulties for firefighters when it comes to trying to show that a workplace toxic exposure was behind a disease they developed. How such challenges are addressed could have impacts on how the pursuit of workers’ compensation goes for firefighters who have developed occupational illnesses. So, when firefighters believe that their job contributed to cancer or some other disease they developed, they may want the help of experienced lawyers in addressing these legal challenges.