WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Over the next three days, firefighters with the Williamsport Bureau of Fire will be reporting to the Swift building on Lycoming Street in Williamsport. They're not gearing up to fight fires here, but getting screened for cancer through the United Diagnostics Services.
"They're gonna like start testing on your thyroid, your carotid arteries, your aortic, they're gonna do a bladder scan, an external liver spleen, stomach and they're looking for any kind of abnormal, I wanna say nodules but something that would show up on an ultrasound," said Tracey Harer, President of Local 736 Firefighters Union.
The bureau says firefighters are at a higher risk of getting cancer than the general public, and when they tested their active members last year, 90% of them had found they had a health-related issue.
"Whether it be an issue with their thyroid or maybe just an enlarged aortic issue or things that they may have already known about, it was something they found and confirmed that they could take to their doctor and follow up with," said Harer.
So, the bureau put out the call over the winter to raise enough money for active and retired volunteers to get screened. Todd Arthur is one of those retired firefighters. He volunteered for 40 years.
"Just the—the items that burn are, the fires are much more intense today, and that's because of the plastics," said Todd Arthur, retired volunteer Williamsport Bureau of Fire firefighter.
Arthur says going for a cancer screening is something all firefighters should look into.
"This is a call across the state for every volunteer and every career department to have a push for every one of their members to have this testing completed."
This cancer screening is the first of many. The Williamsport Bureau of Fire also wants to provide members with a blood test screening. So far, they've raised $26,000. The total cost for the blood test is $52,000.
"So we can get a baseline—in 2024, we'll get a baseline with these two tests, and then we can look for the next couple years to try to—hopefully, there's legislation out in the future that'll be there to help pay for the insurance but if not in the meantime we have time to raise money to get that test again," said Harer.
To donate, call the Williamsport Bureau of Fire at 570-327-1602.