“…. the one where we open the wounds..”
EPISODE 61 ~ Diane Cotter
Stack: ..
Welcome to episode 61 of the things we all carry. Few words can strike fear, like the word cancer. The adage is that it will touch everyone’s life at some point. That’s never been true for me as I sit here writing today, I have my own mother foremost in my mind. She’s put up a Valiant and brave fight over the last few years after being diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.
Her spirits never seemed to break over that time. And that holds true today. While she’s home in hospice care. My mind also turns to a friend, really a brother as he and his family turned their energy and focus to this battle as well. Unfortunately as firefighters, we are much more susceptible to this insidious disease than the rest of the population.
For many years, we’ve all heard this dismissal of it’s part of the job or something to that effect. We face numerous carcinogens on a daily basis from diesel exhaust to poor sleep to the byproducts of house fires. The last thing we need is another risk added to that list.
Yet in a cruel twist of fate. We have just that. And it comes into the very gear meant to protect us. Our turnout gears, festering with and continually shedding. What are commonly called forever chemicals. Or classified as PFS. They are known carcinogens, whether identified quote unquote safe levels.
Our gear greatly exceeds any so-called acceptable levels. Every time we Don our gear. We put ourselves at greater risk for the fight of our lives. Diane Cotter is a patron Saint. She met her industry head on with dog and determination , after her husband, a 28 year vet of the Worcester fire department was diagnosed with cancer.
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Stack: Her journey was one of discovery, both as a person and an activist. And unassuming wife and mom, who at one point refuse to have more than 99 Facebook friends became the face and voice of a fierce battle for what amounted to the soul of the fire service. She took up the mantle and the burden of advocacy at the time. When the old guard had selfish reasons to quiet and discredit her. Much to our benefit. She never quit and didn’t back down despite their efforts take a listen, as Diane tells her story from the personal side of the battle. Listen to, she speaks of the toll. It took on her and how she came out. The other side.
Then find a way to thank and applaud her for everything she’s accomplished for all of us in a fire service. It turns out that we as firefighters really do need heroes. And Diane Cotter is just that our superhero.
A quick reminder to please help us build a community which not only recognizes, but supports each other through the struggles and recovery.
Reach out through Instagram at the things we all carry or email. My story @thethingsweallcarry.com. To offer support and share your story. Please remember to leave a review on iTunes and give a shout out to any first responder, you know, love or care about y’all enjoy the show.
Stack: I’d like to welcome to the show Diane Cotter. It’s been a long time getting this interview set up and we had, well, excuse me. We had it set up a couple back and forth, a couple of instances with my adhd, which prevented me. They didn’t prevent me, but it’s a good excuse for, for, for screwing up.
Uh, thank you for being patient, and thank you for giving me your time this morning. How are you?
Diane: Oh, I’m great, Brendan. Thank you so much for having me today.
Stack: So we’ll get into your story and, and why you’re on the show and why I find the, the story fascinating and, and, and very vital for, uh, the entire first responder community here.
But let’s hear a little bit about you first. Um, what was family life like? Where did you grow up? And, and, uh, you know, where did you, where did you, I dunno, where did you get your values and your morals and everything from? Sure.
Diane: I, I love the question. It’s a difficult topic for me. But I did grow up in Worcester, most Massachusetts.
I grew up in, um, a section of the city of three Deckers. My, my mom was, um, Irish, my father Italian. My mom stayed home to raise my brother and I, and, um, we lived next to, um, Norton Company, which was a great big factory in the city of Worcester. And the, the childhood was traumatic, unfortunately. I wish I could say it was beautiful, but it was traumatic.
Um, my mom was, um, unfortunately suffered greatly with alcoholism and led her to a couple of suicide attempts, um, in shock therapy. And by the time I was 10 years old, So, uh, my dad was an icon in the city. He was very well known because he managed what was then called, uh, Lowe’s Poi Palace. And those are just gorgeous theaters, um, that were designed by, uh, I think it was Walter Lamb out of New Haven, Connecticut.
So he. He had pretty much, um, he was a gregarious, you know, character and loved beautiful women. And, um, my mother dealt with that the only way she could, so childhood shaped me to be a very, very private person. And, um, yeah. And. Things changed. You know, after, um, even, even when I, I met Paul, he was very gregarious and, um, I think people thought I was gregarious, but it was probably, um, an act because of my father’s being an icon in the city.
You know, we were expected to behave a certain way. So, um, yeah, so I met Paul in high school. It’s a beautiful story. He was driving down what we, what we call, I guess one-90. He tells me it was a, a different street, but I know it was one-90.
And I’m in the passenger seat with my girlfriend.
Who’s driving, you know, a panel station wagon, her, her parents’ panel station wagon. This is 1976, I think. And I look over and there’s just this gorgeous man with, um, beautiful long hair and, um, this gorgeous smile. And he is driving his father’s baby blue Cadillac with a white roof. And I, I’m gonna tell you, it’s, I know it sounds so corny, but in that second, I saw stars, I fell in love in this all happen in a heartbeat.
I said, that is the man I am going to marry. So, um, it was the seventies, remember? So he pulled up and smiled and in motion like, come on over here. All of me. So I said to my girlfriend, Hey, do you know these guys? And she said, yeah, yeah, those are the cutters. And so we followed them into a parking lot. And, um, he’s sitting in the front seat driving that baby blue Cadillac.
And, uh, he motions for me to come over and sit in the car with him and he turns around and says, Todd, the guy’s sitting in the car with him. Everybody out.
And so, yeah, that was the beginning of the, you know, the love Yeah. Started there. Yeah.
Stack: So what, what year was that?
Diane: That was 76. Okay. And we just celebrated our 40th anniversary. Well, congratulations.
Stack: Thank you. And what about children? Do you guys have children? We
Diane: do, yeah. We have, uh, our daughter Jimmy. She, uh, she and her, um, husband live in, uh, Massachusetts, the social workers.
And they have blessed us with two beautiful boys that we. That we adore and we have a son who is also a Wooster firefighter, and we could not be prouder of him. He’s also a United States Marine.
Stack: So was Was your husband a firefighter when you met him or was he still
Diane: in high school? Oh no, he actually was not a firefighter when we met.
He worked in a factory. Um, he took the exam and, uh, finally did get on in 1988 and, um, he just fell in love with the job. From day one. We fell in love with the job together. Uh, we just, we really had that idyllic, you know, firefighters hanging with firefighters, with Patty, with firefighters. We vacation with firefighters, we.
You know, go to weddings and baptism and if you fire family becomes your family. We had a, Paul had just the greatest group. Um, you know, he had an extraordinary career. He finally got on the rescue, uh, when he was about four years into the job. He absolutely loved it. And, you know, the antics that, that, you know, were just taking place.
Daily were legendary, but they are in every firehouse. You know, they used to, Paul has a potato gun used to enjoy shooting out the, um, the windows of some vacant buildings from the, from the parking. Lot of the, um, I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this.
Stack: Yeah. You’re giving away secrets now.
Diane: Yeah, I am.
Yeah. They had us, they had so much fun. They had so much fun. You know, we would, we would go down, we’d take the kids down and watch the, you know, parade from the fire station. And it was just awesome. Everything about it was just the best, the absolute best. Yeah. And then of course, um, Paul was in, um, injured on duty about three weeks before the December 3rd, 1999 warehouse fire.
He was at a ~ a ceiling came down on him and he was not working the night at the warehouse by, because he is on the rescue, they called in, um, someone else to fill in for him. And that person that filled in for him, um, was not a rescue person as it turns out. Um, there was a swap, uh, that evening. In, in the firehouse.
And one of the guys that ended up replacing Paul on the rescue that night was Jerry, Lucy. And, um, I think, yeah, listeners probably knew that the warehouse fire, we lost six five fighters of 1999. And, um, yeah, that was, uh, quite an outpouring of love and motion for the city, Worcester. I think we had over, I don’t know, I, once I heard 60,000 came to the city, we had the president and the vice president and all the congressmen.
And my husband was a liaison. Uh, one of the families that were very close with the Jackson family. Um, an outer, uh, was the warehouse fire. A Larry Firefighter Foundation was born.
Stack: Yeah. And I was gonna say, I, there are a couple things to take away from, from that part. Um, the fact that he wasn’t there for the fire I, you know, did, how did he deal with that?
Diane: Oh, terribly, absolutely terribly. Um, I can remember getting call as I was driving somewhere in, in, um, country Road somewhere in Holden, Massachusetts. And he said, Diane, we’ve lost. We’ve lost six. And I said, oh God, Paul and my hat was racing. He was choking back to us and he went to the firehouse and me and the phones, which was not what he wanted to do, but they wouldn’t let him on the job.
And, um, You know, the wives were calling and you, he was put in a terrible position, obviously, to know what he couldn’t say. And, you know, we all started coming to the, to the scene and we all remained at the scene for, for days and days. And Paul got immersed in becoming a liaison and, uh, Went on for months and months and nearly broke our marriage.
Um, he didn’t know how to stop being a liaison and I finally gave him an ultimatum one day cause he wanted to deliver mail to one of the, you know, the family that he was caring for. And I had said to him, if you go out that door, the kids and I won’t be here when you come back. So, yeah, pick up the phone.
He called Frank Rafa, a union president, and he said, Frank, I’m out. And that was it.
Stack: And when he says he was out, he, he means the, that that kind of the, the liaison part and the end up being so deep into it, that ended
Diane: that moment, right, that moment. Because obviously you have to know, you know, it’s a very stressful job and you can get very caught up in it too, because being a liaison, you know, you, you’re invited to a lot of events and mm-hmm.
You have a, you know, and, um, it was, it was very emotional for him. He. I, I’m sure you know, he probably suffered, would survive his guilt and had to do what he could do to, to somehow repay. Not that you can ever repay, but he put himself, um, in a position where he was gone from his family for over a year and over again.
Well over a year. And I remember they had a critical incident stress management team set up for the liaisons and the wives and the liaisons and I finally called, broke down and called and they said, we’ve been waiting for you, Diane. We’ve heard from everybody by you.
Stack: So they were just, they knew that they were gonna have to step in
Diane: at some point? Yes, yes, because. You know, one tragedy happens and on, on the scale that it did, there are a lot of, um, there’s a lot of help. You know, you have so many organizations that come in and, and there are, um, pretty much nonstop, um, events and.
While as a, as a liaison wife, you understand that these happen, been, they do subside after time. And what wasn’t subsiding was the errands that my husband and, and some others were still participating in. And, you know, it, it just became too much for me, uh, as his wife to, to, to deal with any longer. And at that point in time, our marriage had been stretched very thin by these fibers that come with being a liaison.
It, I, I don’t want you to misunderstand because I was so very proud the initial months, but months turned into many more months and, um, yeah, it, it’s definitely pulled up the fibers of our marriage. To the degree that I had to stop it.
Stack: So he responds to that and continues. Um, he, he recovers and continues back onto the job.
Yes, he does. And your marriage survives and, and thrives?
Diane: It did, yeah. The marriage, the marriage has always been, um, you know, the, the parts of our marriage have always been wonderful. We’ve always had a loving home. Um, because I grew up in a, in traumatic home, so I never wanted that for my children. And, you know, my, my hu my husband’s a wonderful husband.
When I did go back to work full-time when my children were, oh, I don’t know, maybe, um, 10 and 11, I think I went back to work full-time. Um, you know, I’d come home and there’d be a fire in the fireplace and my husband would be cooking dinner on the nights that he was home. And we just had a beautiful nightly ritual of, you know, watching TV together and you know, just, uh, children seeing us sitting very close together on the sofa.
Cuz I never saw that. And I wanted my children to experience, uh, a loving home. And we did have that. Not to say that we didn’t fight cuz boy we did, you know, I’m Irish and Italian, so Yeah. There’s, there’s been a, there’s been a few. There’s been a few. I don’t hold back. I guess what I’d have to say, and I think anybody that knows me would say, oh yeah, that’s Diane.
Stack: Yeah, that’s, that’s also the region that’s, that’s New England, let’s put it that way. I, I, I have some family up there. I, I know the deal.
Diane: Yeah. So, but no, the marriage, the marriage was always strong, you know, even at its worst, you know, cuz you know, we’ve had a 40 year run, so, you know, we’ve had issues Of course.
Yeah. And, um, yeah, he holds the line or I hold the line, or we hold the line together, you know, we, we fight, we make up and we move on, you know,
Stack: so, Let’s, let’s get into why I wanted you to come onto the show, even though, I mean that’s the, the lead up is fascinating. We could get into to that lead up and go so many directions, but there’s a, there’s, there’s a very specific reason that, that you’re on the show.
And, and it started what way back in 2014, correct? Yeah. And, um, so in September of 2014, he, he was promoted correct. To
Diane: lieutenant? He was. We had gone to, You know, Moosehead Lake with his best friends and my best friends, the Carols and the Kocher, um, and the remains. We rented a beautiful lake house up on Moosehead Lake and oh my God, we were just having a ridiculous time having way too much fun and we were going back because Jay was being promoted and Paul was being promoted.
So Paul. Um, never wanted to leave the rescue and he was about 53 years old when he decided that he was gonna start making his way up the ladder. So he took the exam and got the, got the results. And, you know, he was disappointed. He said, oh shit, I passed.
Stack: And you don’t know how many times I’ve heard that before.
Diane: Yeah. He just, you know, he just lived for the rescue and um, sure enough, we, we come back from vacation. We are in the city hall at this amazing ceremony right in wor city hall and, um, Paul’s given his white cap and we get the beautiful pictures taken with the family and our son was leaving shortly thereafter to go in the Marines to become a firefighter.
So he, you know, in Massachusetts they had the veterans preference and, um, that’s what my son wanted to do. And, um, we came home and life was, life was great. He was getting ready to get on to, um, A rig, I guess at a different firehouse. And he got a call that, um, his PSA level was up and it had never been up and it was only up by a hair.
I mean, we’re talking a hair. And he went in and, um, had a biopsy and I’ll them forget that morning that we went to the doctor’s because I was impatient. I never in a million years figured that he’d have cancer. He was just, you know, a body builder and everything he did was something around health. And, you know, he’d be on the, he’s the guy in the, in the firehouse that gets on the loud speaker and says, all right, everybody in the weight room, now we’re gonna lift like men.
It was just who he was. And, um, I don’t, I don’t want anyone to take that the wrong way because when, when he’s speaking, he’s speaking to, to the, the, the girl firefighters too. And I always have to say that Paul and I share the same best friend and she’s a firefighter. So, yeah. But um, at any event, so we went to the doctor.
Stack: Yeah, I was gonna, I’m sorry. I did not mean to interrupt you. I, I, I, sometimes I’m not, don’t do a good job of knowing when the natural breaks are there. Um, yeah. So what’s the next step after, after that call?
Diane: Well, then the, the call was the biopsy and of course we didn’t think anything was gonna be wrong.
And, um, we go to the doctor’s office and I’m thinking, I gotta get outta here cause I have groceries, I have to do. It’s a Saturday or something like that. It was a day that I had off and I needed to run some errands. And um, sure enough, the doctor comes in and he’s just talking very nonchalant, and I’m thinking, oh, this is good.
This means he’s not concerned. It’s not cancer. Good. And then all of a sudden he says, yeah, it’s cancer. And I literally screamed and fell into the chair in the little office. And Paul, the sweat just broke out of him and he had to tear off his shirt and he sunk into a chair and oh God, you know, and then the doctor spoke for about 45 minutes and neither one of us heard a word he said.
And, um, when we came home and
it was just disbelief, you know, we had always been that family that had the big. Firefighter house parties, you know, for Christmas we’d, we’d have 200 firefighters in and out of our house that night. You know, it’d be ridiculous Bodies in our house and the neighbors put up with it cuz they were all firefighters in my family.
But we didn’t have that year and people couldn’t figure out why. Well, we couldn’t tell anyone. Paul didn’t know how to tell our children. that he had cancer. He didn’t know how to tell his brothers that he had cancer. And I said, Paul, you have to tell your brothers. I have to know they have to get checked too.
And I’ll never forget the phone call he made, cuz um, he said to his brothers, um, I have a touch of cancer who has a touch of
Stack: cancer, a touch of cancers, a a little bit pregnant.
Diane: Oh. Exactly. And we did end up telling our kids and you know, they were so afraid. So afraid. And our son went off to bootcamp and he was so emotional, you know, cuz he didn’t wanna leave his dad.
My son was, you know, 23 years old, 21 in the Marines and um, he had to do it then. So in any event, Paul has his surgery and we go to St. Elizabeth’s in Boston. Mark Brighton, I think it is in Paul’s driving on, um, I guess it’s Route nine in Massachusetts in, uh, it’s, I forget what they call it, the mass turnpike, and it’s the worst snowstorm in a year.
And the windshield wipers are, Uh, won’t even work. So Paul’s hanging out the, the Jeep driving, trying to, trying to wipe the windshield, um, off of o the, the snow, sleet, and ice. And I’m thinking, oh, we’re gonna get killed while we’re on the way to save his life. And um, sure enough, he’s hanging out the, the Jeep window trying to operate the windshield wiper.
Cuz it was horrible. Cause there’s nowhere that you can really pull over on the Mass Turnpike in Boston without getting killed.
Stack: No, I can, I can, I can verify that.
Diane: So we go to St. Elizabeth and I, I mean, it’s just amazing. It’s, you know, I’m, I get a very good feeling when I walk through the doors because there’s beautiful, um, stature of Christ and that’s very important to me in my life.
And I feel a way. Come over me that everything’s gonna be okay. And, um, his, his doctor is Dr. Engulf Turk, um, who is an absolute ringer for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Um, speaks with the thick German accent. And, um, he performed the surgery in the re the surgery. Was successful. So the prostate was removed. Um, but it left Paul with what we, we didn’t wanna talk about this for a long time because it’s humiliating, but it left him in continent.
So you look at him and he looks, you know, Back into taking care of his body. And he’s 63, but he, he looks much younger than that. He’s a big built guy, but it left him in continent. So, you know, you can’t be a, a firefighter with incon incontinence. And so the realization set in. That he would not be returning to the job.
And I think that was, that realization and watching Paul not get out of a reclining chair to have today was, is so difficult.
And that’s what led to me. Turning to research, to wanting to understand what is someone so healthy get cancer. Cuz it comes from a big Irish family. No, no one in his family has prostate cancer. None of them, none of his cousins and brothers. So, um, I just kept getting this message that. There’s more to it.
There’s more to it. And I kept researching firefighter Cancer and Boston had just come up with this great video about firefighter cancer. And I’ve started to, you know, look at, um, all of these sites that were about firefighter cancer. And I started looking at sites that led me to research, not firefighter cancer, but the gear.
And I came across something that showed that there was a, um, firefighter in New Jersey, back in, I wanted to say 2006, whose gear failed and I failed. I mean, he was in a fire and this gear had degraded so much. That it caused steam burns throughout his body and he succumbeded to those injuries. And the thought of that was so horrifying to me.
So I went down to a basement and I pulled his gear out of the cellar of the box that it had been stored away in. And I shined a flashlight through the gear. I pulled the liner out from the, that outer shell, and I could see these, you know, coin size pieces of fabric missing and I, I describe it as like, look at a oven mat when you know it’s filled with that material that’s gonna keep you from burning your, your hands, fingers when you use it. But that material was missing in, you know, quarter and diamond nickel size pieces. And I thought, holy shit, what is going on here?
And, um, I ran back upstairs and started to search the materials. Kevlar nomex, out outer shell, inner shell moisture area. You know, I, I guess I became like a machine searching and thinking, how does it get through? And then I started reading N F P A documents and learning how to. Navigate the N F P A machine and looking through all of the material online.
And I started thinking, why is the material breaking down? And then I found this 1999 safety alert I hope I don’t get his name wrong, but I wanna say, It was it Al Whitehead, who was the leader of the I A F F in 1999 had sent out a, a safety alert, this moisture barrier, and this is when things went sideways because it read very strongly that the I A F was going after the manufacturers because they didn’t want to recall this.
This, um, safety barrier that had degraded. I’m thinking, why the hell won’t they do what the I A F is telling them to do? And that’s when I started looking into corporations. I’m thinking, what’s up with this? What is up with these, you know, corporations that the I A F is now threatened to sue if they don’t, you know, um, recall that safety.
That moisture barrier that’s degrading. So at any event, I started to, uh, reach out to firefighters and, you know, fire companies and, um, started researching Kevlar and Nomex in firefighter cancer and I was emailing and messaging hundreds of people. I, you know, stopped messaging and. One of the people that I emailed was Erin Brockovich and out of the clear blue, one day she called and she said, Diana, I’ve gotten your emails and you know, I wanted you to know I’ve gotten a call from a New Hampshire fire chief who said that he has 13 firefighters with cancer.
And I said, yeah, that doesn’t surprise me because you know, every firehouse is a cancer cluster. And then we started talking about my findings and she said, do you know if this P F O A or P F O S gui? And I said, oh, I’ve never heard of that. So after the conversation, I hang up the phone and I call, um, um, like Google, P F O A, or P F Os, and Firefighter turnout gear.
And I find that in 2014, the European, uh, chemical agency was already, um, petitioning the stakeholders that being, you know, the DuPont and 3M and line gear, et cetera, um, petitioning them to remove the P F O A from firefighter turnout gear. But what I found actually was A A P D F that said that Europe is beginning its transition to non P F O A P P E, and that’s when I really went balls to the walls with social media because, um, at that time I had maybe a following of like 99 people on.
Uh, I had 99 friends on Facebook. I have to tell you, and I kept it that way because I thought I don’t, you know, I, I was, I had to overcome a lot as a, you know, um, I came, overcame a lot, childhood trauma in one of the ways I protected myself with, by being isolated. I worked very well in isolation. So if I got a hundred friends, that meant somebody had to go.
So I always taken that. And, um, at any event I began messaging, does anybody know about this? Does P F O A and p P E and Zaia have that here? And I just couldn’t get any answers. And, um, I finally started becoming, you know, dropping that shield around myself and. Became more and more prolific on social media and started to email and research and email the companies.
And the responses would say that, you know, they, it may be there as a byproduct of manufacturing. Hmm. In amounts. And I said, well, what’s a trace amount? Cause I don’t understand that language. You know, I barely graduated high school. And um, uh, I finally. Was able to determine that if I really wanted to know the truth, I’d have to do it myself.
Diane: So, um, I wrote an article and I sent it to John Ma, the Editor Station Pride, and I think he, he really just kind of put up with me, um, for weeks and months and then said, you know, I’m wanna look into this, Diane, if what you’re saying is true, then you know I’ve got an obligation. So, yeah, he, he took my article and he said, I can’t publish it.
It’s, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s too long and, you know, you’re making these crazy accusations. You’ve got no proof of anything. And then he said, but I can’t not publish it. So he published it and he called it the Real Cancer in Your Gear. And, um, the great article and in it we saw it published and shared thousands of times, and no one was commenting, but they were sharing it and it, it really caused a backlash.
And, um, we then started seeing who the players were. And, you know, I was so naive, I’ll tell you because I just kept wanting to find out. That I was wrong, but never find out that I was wrong. Them. And I ended up purchasing a set of new, never worn turnout gear, and by this time I had really made connections and started to develop a network of firefighters and scientists, and people were reaching out to me on social media.
And I had a page called, um, yeah, turnout Gear and P F O A that had five, 5,000 followers. It’s no longer in existence. But, um, at any event, we started publishing all of our findings there and I was able to, um, find Dr. Graham Peasley, the Nucl astrophysicist at Notre Dame. It was just turned into a rockstar, you know, for the fire service because it breaks down the science and relatable form for us.
And, um, with no money. We, we reached out to the last call Foundation honoring by item Michael Kennedy and I reached out to Kathy Crosby Bell. Paul and I drove to Florian Hall. Sat with Kathy and you know her son Michael is a firefighter and is also a Marine. And the organization was founded after Michael succumbed to a tragic incident in Boston’s back bay with his Lieutenant Ed Walsh.
Um, March 26th, I believe, of 2014. That’s the Back Bay Fire and Kathy out that tragedy formed Last Call Foundation. She’s very well known and respected in drought, Massachusetts and the nation because of the work that she’s done for firefighters. Um, so she funded a study for Grand Peasley because, um, Dr. Peasley always has worked. Pro bono, but these very, um, technical tests are done by commercial labs and that cost thousands and thousands of dollars. So we needed a network of firefighters. We needed new gear, we needed decommissioned gear, and I may never be able to tell you how we’ve got the new gear.
I’ll leave that up to one of my teammates. Someday to share that story. But we did, we formed an underground operation, the most unlikely group ever, and we pulled off the study that the fire service institutions never did. And it was pub
Stack: And I was gonna say, what, what were the findings? Cuz I, I, I don’t know what the acceptable level is.
I, I don’t even like that term, acceptable level of the, of, of the chemicals because, There’s so much we don’t know about the chemicals even to, to, to today. Mm-hmm. What was the finding on those, on that set of gear that, that grant peasley,
Diane: so that was pilot study and that initial study. Um, you can see all of these.
I do have a website. It’s called your turnout gear and pfoa.com, and there’s a great page there. There’s a chronology. And in that you’ll find all of, all of these studies in the station Pride articles. But the pilot study, Dr. Paisley wrote me back and he read off the findings as P F O A and um, P F N A and all these things.
I have no idea what he was talking about, but I could see in this st in this email. That he was very concerned and he said, you’re gonna need to do a larger study. And that’s when we had to pull off the underground operation and get the decommission gear and the new gear to Notre Dame and get the funding for the, for the larger peer reviewed study, which is what we did.
So the findings were staggering of the pilot study, but he needed a peer reviewed study. He had never seen chemicals, he had never seen textiles with the amount of, um, fluorinated material that your turnout gear has. So the pilot study was the awakening of the, um, a via service that we now have a peer reviewed study.
And that was being combated by, um, non-peer reviewed studies. So once you get into these type of, um, studies, you’ll find that there are stringent peer reviewed studies that are done by respected science scientists and researchers. And then you get into what is called consulting studies. And those studies are paid for by an organization that would like you to find in their favor, and that is exactly what happened.
The Lion Gear study was a paid consultant study by the group exponent and. What happened was their study refuted Dr. Beasley’s study by saying that, that there were n not significant findings in, in turnout gear. And it also said that if, you know, the, the short chain PFA s were there, but they were too big to pass through your skin.
And I saw that being promulgated throughout the fire service. In in those those days, I, I’m no longer firing flaming arrows, but I took it very personally of what was being told to firefighters and I was a wildcat on social media aiming an arrow at anybody and everybody that differed with Dr. Peasley’s study.
And what does
Stack: that, what does that do, I guess to you would be the question. What what, what was the backlash?
Diane: Oh, God. There was backlash, in fact, because, my aim was at Harold Schaitberger who was the president of the union at that time. I received a call that, um, the union would no longer be affiliated with me and, um, in Massachusetts it was obvious when Paul and I would show up at the State House or hearing and firefighters that once, you know, welcomed us with open arms, wouldn’t look at us and.
Um, one particular day was extremely bad. We went to give testimony and the people that I had worked closely with on the strongest legislate, on the strongest, um, language for, for firefighters back in 2018 and 2019, the reception was very cold. I found myself sitting alone in a, in a, um, bench. Prior to giving my testimony, and it is at that moment that we knew that there had been an order to shun us.
So we called it the shunning. And the shunning went on for a number of years. Um, people, you know, Paul and I would enter a room and people would put their hands in their pockets and bow their head because they were advised. Not to speak to us or not to be affiliated with us. And what that did to me was it made me fight harder.
Um, I, I fought voraciously and loudly and like a, like a, like a wild cat, like a, like a banshee. Um, and that was drawing a lot of attention. And I think it’s safe to say one of the. Parties that, um, caught the attention was President Ed Kelly, who’s now your president. And, um, he became very interested in this issue and I think it became one of his, um, major pieces for his campaign was that he was gonna take on the industries.
And have trans, you know, had transparency of what has gone on in the I A F F previous to his reign. So, um, as he began his own investigation into the chemicals in your gear, we had now a team from, from coast to coast that were. Working on a new structure within the union, and that included, uh, firefighters from Massachusetts, um, to Florida, to California, to Washington state, uh, throughout the nation.
Alaska, Alaska. Um, the network was, was becoming larger and larger, but the work that was being done, Um, by the firefighters had to follow the chain of command. Um, and I had no chain of command.
Stack: That’s, that’s the beauty of it, right?
Diane: It is, it is. Um, because I was free to call out industry in the N F P A, which I did, and you know, there was the powers that be in the institutions.
Um, they carry a lot of weight. And the N F P A became my main target because what I saw in there was just so corrupt and so opportunistic. Um, and I’m, I’m gonna tell you that one day I got a call from the idea, dear friend, who’s gone now, Bobby Halton.
And he said, kid, you be careful. You’ll be careful, kid. So those of you that might not know the name, Bobby Holton is editor, editor-in-Chief of Fire Engineering and I was poking barbs at Bobby Halton wildly. Wildly on social media. I was yelling at, yelling at him, I guess on social media and saying, why aren’t you talking about this Bobby Halton?
And then he replied, Diane Cotter, I am not hot to find. And he wrote his phone number. I picked up the phone that instant and uh, called him, we spoke for two hours. And you know, he promised me he’d speak to Gram Peasley. And he did, and he learned all he needed to know. And then Bobby gave us such a platform on fire engineering with PJ Norwood and Frank Ricci, and they’d have our teammates on, you know, the Hump Day hangout constantly.
And you know, Bobby invited. Graham Peasley at, um, F D I C, and I’ll never forget that because Bobby had an impossible position. You know, he had to introduce this situation for the fire service and the members that, that, that I was accusing of, of being corrupt and disingenuous, where his paying, you know, his bread and butter.
But he did do it in a way that allowed space for us. And that opened up many conversations. And you saw our allies that were working, um, the Nantucket Fire Department, fall River Fire Department, um, um, and then of course you’d see Gram Peasley and Robert who took this issue on with us. You’d see all of our allies speaking on the podcast and you know, the articles would then come out and then shared on social media, and that’s where I did my best work was.
Social media. So there are, there are many people that are smiling right now cuz they were one of the hundreds of people I bombarded daily with these, with these, you know, statements and dialogues and articles and, uh, it was just one of the ways you, you manage a campaign. But one thing that Bobby did say to me, he said, kid, listen, um, there’s a meeting.
In, in Washington dc and I was a asked to attend it and it’s um, lion gear’s. John Granby was at the, the I A F F headquarters under Schaitberger to, um, discuss how to mess with Diane Cotter
Stack: so instead of making any changes, they wanted to discredit you and Yeah. Sweep it under the rug.
Diane: Right, right. Well, um, I had seen that in, you know, that was one of the hardships about being the.
The outsider is that I could, I could call out she Burger and I wrote blog after blog about she Burger and what he was doing. And, you know, then I began seeing the other blogs about She Burger and other incidences. Um, you know, the, the blogs that Eric Lamar wrote and then the article that came out about the, um, the pension, um, You know, the, the, the, the double dipping of the pension for 20 years.
But it was easy for me to do my own thing because, um, I had no one telling me what I couldn and couldn’t do. But as firefighters, you cannot do that. So I was on a lot of podcasts and writing a lot of articles on Medium and, um, You know, my, my truths were, in my opinion, I was holding the line for the truth of this issue, but it was wearing away at me because of the backlash of the attacks and of having to spin wheels.
I was in full throttle for five years. I never geared down from full throttle because it was a 24 7 job. To keep the truth alive, and I was combating organizations that had endless money and I had no money. And the only way that I could keep the truth was by building, uh, network of firefighters that shared their stories and by ridiculous amounts of emails, so many emails, I think.
Last count was 25,000 emails. I’ve stopped counting, but, um, but we grew, grew network with senators and congressionals and, um, you saw Ed Kelly from day one when he took the reigns. This is job one for Ed. Ed Kelly, you know, he came out swinging. I mean, I was so impressed. I just couldn’t believe, you know, that we now had the exact opposite of Harold Shake Berger, but it did take its toll.
Um, after a particularly horrific incident, um, I wore down. I got so beat down that, uh, I considered taking my life and. I told, I told my dear friend an ally,
Jeff Knobbe, he’s a P P E specialist, in Alameda County, California.
I didn’t tell my husband, but I told Jeff. That he would be the administrator that I had made him administrator with my social media pages in the event… I took my life.
Stack: So how do you start to recover from that?
Diane: I didn’t, I didn’t recover from that, that one on he knew. So, you know, he was continuing to check on me, but it was a heavy burden to put on him too. It wasn’t fair.
But nonetheless, the recovery came when this, you know, when the new administration got in and the science team was set up and I could see things shifting and changing, and it felt great. It felt great to see such a big change. You know, we had Ed Kelly and his team and he’s become an activist and an environmentalist and he’s, he’s just taken on the industry and taken on, you know, taken on the N F P A, cuz now he’s got a group of lawyers, the PFAS law firms, three legal teams.
And they’re going to combat this issue on Capitol Hill. The combating they, they had like a lobbying group, you know, of the issue. Many issues. I guess the taking on the N F P A, I think it was just a month ago, the papers were served to the N F P A, that the I A F F is suing the N F P A. On this issue because the N F P A is really, although they’re gonna tell you that they are a, uh, neutral organization that is a crock of shit.
That is such a crock of shit. You, you, you, you can’t tell me that these, um, you know, you got a corporation like Lion Gear, who’s head of corporate responsibility. Uh, vice President John Granby wants to mess with a firefighter’s wife. Um, he, he sits on or sat, I don’t even know what he does now, but, You know, these, these are the voting members of the N F P A, the people that my husband and others are suing for their cancers.
So, so much has come out of this action. I, it’s, it, there’s so many, um, uh, leaves of it, more arms of this subject. I really don’t know where one begins and one ends, but I can tell you that, um, right now I’m a different woman. Um, The, the pain taught me a lot about myself. It’s okay to be out there. Um, I’m not out there to please everybody. I’ve had a lot of disappointments along the way. You know, I’ve, I’ve seen, um, I’ve seen a lot of people put themselves in this issue that. You weren’t righteous, that were opportunistic. I’ve had many disappointments, but I’ve always held the line for, in my opinion, what the truth is.
So I’ve become very tough and I didn’t like being tough. I liked being silly. I liked knitting, but I, I, that girl is dead now. You know, I’m a dirty person. I am knitting again though, but I’m not gentle the way I used to be. So yeah, it takes time, but I am relieved. I am relieved. You know, in Las Vegas, um, January 30th, the documentary burned was shown in Paul and I were flown out by the I A F F and we were honored in the most fantastic way. I just couldn’t be prouder of the I A F F than what they’re doing right now.
https://etherealfilms.org/burned/
Stack: You said that you’re a changed person. Mm-hmm And I think I can, I can understand that cuz you take up a mantle. And you, uh, you get beaten down for so long. You have to, you have to change in some manner. And, uh, it’s good to hear that you, you’re, you, you’re back to knitting and, and. How do you, I guess, how do you, how do you find yourself again?
Diane: Well, one of the things that, you know, Paul and I have always enjoyed is a natural world. So we, um, when we downsized, After Paul’s cancer, we bought a house in Ridge, New Hampshire that’s on power lines. And we love walking the power lines. We love the deer in the backyard, we love the birds in the backyard, you know, the geese in the pond.
And we’re very blessed that way. Um, to find myself again in writing. I, you know, I’m writing a memoir about all of this and I love writing, so that’s good. Um, and it’s hard cuz you know, sometimes I revisit, um, my diaries from these days and, uh, really fucks me up. Good for a while. Yeah. But it is good to write it out. And the memoir is now, um, taking shape because I’m writing.
From the view of a seasoned activist, and I look back at, uh, how naive I was, how naive I was. Yeah. In what sense? I trusted everyone. I trusted everyone and everything. And you know, for the first two years I kept thinking that everybody saw this issue like I did. You know? And finally, I, I realized, that, that, that, you know, the N F P A was just a, a such a cog of a machine I, I couldn’t break through. Um, and I realized that Harold, he had an agenda that did not align with the facts. And, you know, I had to combat that. Um, daily. I really. Hourly, you know, it was, it became like a, a hawk, you know, what, what’s this one saying?
What’s that one saying? And then I’d have to combat that online. And then the, the backlash would come on, you know, from firefighters that, that believed in their leader. But, but we’re really given misinformation. So
Stack: I think yeah, it’s that, it’s that blind
Diane: allegiance. It is, yeah. It was. Yeah, I get messages daily.
You know, Diane, you know, you, you made us open our eyes and we didn’t wanna see it. And um, you know, I understand that I didn’t wanna see it for Christ sakes, you know, for two years. I believed it too. I’m like, okay, we’ll just wait.
And at one point in time I just said, oh, fuck this. And I just started. Taking the arrows and just lightening them up and flaming them through the air and yeah, making ’em stick. And that’s what you had to become. You had, I had to become bombastic and ugly and yeah, I had to become that, that C word that I say regularly.
Stack: Well, you had to become a fighter. That’s for God damn sure. I
Diane: had to become a fighter. And I didn’t like that.
Stack: No, you, you had to put yourself in a very public eye.
Diane: I did. Yeah. I didn’t like, I didn’t like my kids saying that, you know, I was yelling at everybody in the fire service and, you know, I sounded, I sounded Unhinged, and I was unhinged.
I was unhinged, I was unfinished, you know,
Stack: so, I I’m gonna, I’m gonna remind everybody to go watch the movie or listen to my episode with Elijah, the filmmaker of burned, because Diane and I talked about it at the beginning before we came on air, that we’re not really gonna get into the science here because I didn’t want to get lost in the science.
Um, but where are you now? What, what? Like what’s today like for you?
Diane: Today’s good. Today is good. I’m writing. I have a, um, my computer looks out over the backyard and I call up those emails from twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, and I revisit those days and I’m writing the, the memoir, um, looking back at all the people that have come through our story.
And, uh, it’s good. It feels really good. Um, Yeah, I’ll go. It’s funny you asked what’s today look like for you. I, I was gonna tell you, I, I go up and I pick up the trash, the drink because it’s, it’s Earth Day and, um, I picked up eight bags of trash yesterday. So, you know, my, my life is, is, is wonderful. Um, you know, I see my grandchildren, our grandchildren so often, they’re just two little bear hubs and.
Um, yeah, life is, life is, life is good. Um, and how is Paul today? I, I wanna say to you that he’s, he is, he’s fine, but you’ll hear in my voice that he’s not fine because, you know, he, he’s never, ever adjusted to not being on the job. He’s. I love isolation. I thrive in isolation. He does not. He does not. You know, and you go, when you have prostate cancer, one of the things that has to happen when they remove that, um, prostate, depending on how the surgery goes, is the rechecks for. For those, um, cancer in your blood still.
So he went recently for another recheck and you know, we wait for the results for that and you hold your breath. But you know, like I said, on the stage in Las Vegas, I failed Guilty saying that because, you know, there are so many widows that are raising families without. Their husbands. I have my husband, he’s a grandfather.
He’s watching his son’s career. And so many of my friends, um, you know, I call them my friends because we be, we do become friends. They’ve lost their husband, they’ve lost their brothers. When we went to, um, the EPA protest, Susan Wind, another activist who like me, was really, really knocked out by her community and others.
She put together protest the EPA and Ed Kelly and Jason Burns, my ride or die guy, Jason Burns. And Jeff Knobbe — I gotta say that cuz they’re both my brothers. Um, they both spoke so well at this EPA protest. Um, and, you know, we’ve had to, we’ve had to organize these events. But at this event, the protest you saw in front of the turnout gear, Pictures of a half dozen firefighters and their, their widows sent me those pictures and they brought them.
Um, one of, one was a sister Dana Sergeant sent her Chicago firefighter Grant his picture there, and you saw Ed Kelly and Jason Burns give their speeches and these men and women are gone and, you know,
The amount of P F O A it takes to grow a tumor in a lab animal is an undetectable amount undetectable. Just don’t know how to make sense of any of this.
Stack: So your best advice to firefighters today, what would that be?
Diane: Don’t wear the gear un until that moment that you have to, you know, it’s, I hate to be the one to say, you shouldn’t be doing the races in the gear. You shouldn’t. I’m gonna tell you when you hear those words, it’s cancer, it’s gonna knock the fuck outta you when you hear those words, ugh.
It’s devastating. And most of you are gonna hear those words, and you’re gonna wonder, was it the gear, the stair climbs in the gear? What’s, you know, was I touching the gear and then ate a sandwich? And you know, I got that shit on my hands. And Peaslee’s researchers can’t even handle the gear without wearing gloves until you can get PFAS-free gear. This is a problem and it’s real. It’s real, but it’s, it’s the one thing that you can control. You know, you should be washing down your stations, getting that dust outta there. Reach out to Jeff Knobbe.
I’ll tell you how to do it. But the good thing is there’s so much material out there now, there’s so many studies and you know, don’t take my word for it, just, um, you’ll find it yourself. The scientists, the science community is behind this, strongly behind this.
Stack: You mentioned pfas free gear. What, where do we stand with that?
Where is there progress being made
Diane: on something like that? There is. There is an outer shell that’s available by safety component. Um, you’ll see that on my website and I am not endorsed by anybody, so it’s, there’s no kickback that’s going on here. And, um, but I know that because they, they worked with Graham Peasley and there are others that wouldn’t work with Graham Peasley cause they didn’t wanna be associated with that guy.
But, um, safety component did work with Graham Peasley. So I think that’s a very positive step. The problem is you have moisture barrier. The moisture barrier is a sheep. Teflon. So you’re literally wrapped in Teflon from your neck to your ankles while you’re sweating. And all of you know about heat and skin absorption.
Manufacturers will tell you that the only thing that is not absorbed through your body is pfas. But those other carcinogens, they are not this stuff though. But we know that’s fault. Problem is, is that the N F P A is holding the line on and they’re gonna say that they’re not holding the line. Yes, they are.
They’re holding the line that, um, the, the, the safety standard to remove that, uh, licious xenon light test that goes back to that 1999 safety alert. For the brave tech moisture barrier, they’re saying that, um, that the t i a that Ed Kelly wrote, um, was voted down by firefighters. I’m gonna tell you something.
Those firefighters that voted it down are sponsored by the companies that my husband and others are suing for their cancers. So, yeah. Right.
Stack: So that, that’s still prevalent today, correct? That, that kind of, um, incestual relationship?
Diane: Oh, hell yes. Oh, hell yes. In fact, I’m going to tell you something else too, that I had written a statement that, um, I had drawn a lot of controversy.
You can read it on my medium page, and that’s the N F P A members must hold. Um, it must declare their conflicts of interest. So this went before, um, a committee discussion. I think that was in early March and I wasn’t there on the task group, although I am a member. I wasn’t there that day.
But what happened was, my comment was snickered at, you know, There’s that nosy housewife again, button herself in here. And thankfully we had a great ally that day. Neil McMillan, who is the director of Science for the I A F F, he held the line and said, how dare you laugh at this woman. I just watched 2300 firefighters give her a standing ovation at the premier of BURNED. So yeah, that still goes on today.
Stack: Hmm. It’s kind of a, I think I’m gonna leave it there with the story. Mm-hmm. And then I, um, I think that’s a pretty good ending. Mm-hmm. Um, we’ll get into those last two questions if you still have time to do ’em real quick. I do. Okay. So, I don’t know how much you’ve listened to the show. Uh, I like to tell people once in a while.
I like to tell the audience once in a while why I do this segment of the, uh, everyday carry I am. I was trying to come up with a title for this podcast, and, and somehow I think that’s was one of the most difficult parts of starting the show. And a coworker of mine brought to attention a book that I had read way back when, and, and he had read recently and he said, I think it makes sense.
And it’s called The Things They, they Carried. And it’s a, it’s a book about Vietnam, it’s a novel about Vietnam, and it references the items that these, this platoon would carry into battle, but then it would also talk about the feelings and emotions and scars and everything they brought out of battle.
And I thought that that was very appropriate cuz obviously as first responders at firefighters, cops, whatever, we bring something into a battle, so to speak, whether it be an EMS call or a fire, but we’re always carrying something out as well. And so to that end, I’d like to ask people, each guest, what’s something that they, they have as an everyday carry?
Something you feel naked if you leave the house without,
Diane: I have a beautiful rosary bracelet and I. I don’t attend church, but, um, I, I do love my faith. I love my spiritual side and, um, I depend
Stack: on it.
And then I also like to give the audience a book or two. And I, so I asked for suggestions of a book you might have read recently or something that’s impacted you throughout the. Throughout your life and something that brings value to the audience. So you, I know you mentioned that you’re, you’re an avid reader and so I think this question is perfect for you.
Diane: Oh, I, I love anything true life and, um, I love the language of letting go. That has helped me so much. Um, there’s a paragraph in there that was very prominent in my life and, um, it’s crossing the bridge and. I think that it, the phrase goes something to the effect of, uh, I’ve crossed the bridge, and even though you’re on the other side, it doesn’t mean that I’m not there for you.
It means that I’m here for you when you come over too.
Stack: I like that it can be interpreted a few ways. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. That’s a, I like that one. That’s, I, I will, uh, add the book in the show notes and, um mm-hmm. I will add your website and as much information as possible, but I think through your website, people can kind of go off on tangents anyway. Correct.
Yeah.
Diane: Well, uh, the, um,
Stack: you’ve got plenty of information is what I’m saying.
Diane: There is, there’s a lot of information there. Yeah.
Stack: And if you want to go ahead and give that and, and listeners, they don’t always read the notes, so if you want to throw it out there
Diane: my website is your turnout gear and P F O a.com.
Stack: And where can people find you other than your website? Are you on social media? Do you want any new friends on social media?
Diane: Yeah, I’m, I’m absolutely public now.
Stack: Okay. So go ahead and give those out and then we’ll wrap up and I’ll let you get out here and enjoy the rest of your day.
Diane: So, on Twitter, I’m https://twitter.com/Di_Cotter and on Facebook, I’m Diane Cotter and you’ll probably see, um, the background picture is of the poster for burned.
Stack: Okay, perfect. And uh, I just tagged you on Instagram as well, so some of my followers might find you there.
Diane: Yes. Cool. Yeah, I’m on Insta https://www.instagram.com/di_cotter/
I forget about that. I really don’t know how Instagram works for
Stack: me. I don’t either. I’m learning as I go, so. Well, I thank you very much. This has been a long time coming and, uh, it did not disappoint. I, I hope that, uh, I hope I can do the story some justice when I release it.
Diane: Um, I have no doubt that you will have Absolutely no doubt you will.
Thank you for letting me tell my story.
Stack: No, that my, the thanks is, is all mine to give because you, you shared and, and it was emotional and I appreciate it. Thank you. You be safe. Thank you. You too. Take care for the rest of the day. I’ll talk to you later. You betcha. Bye. Now we’re out.
https://www.menshealth.com/health/a37624731/cancer-firefighter-gear-pfas/