Firefighters pull off heroic maneuvers all the time. Heat and smoke and fire are their constant companions. Emergency scenarios keep them perpetually challenged. Risking their lives is a top job responsibility. I can't imagine taking on this line of work, yet I am amazed by those who do -- for their eagerness to save lives while compromising their own. And to read today that cancer is another occupational hazard for firefighters makes me appreciate them even more.

In Edmonton, a firefighter who was praised as a hero for saving the life of a rookie firefighter in 2003 died on Saturday of job-related cancer at the age of 47 -- just two years after doctors diagnosed him with a terminal form of multiple myeloma. Clarke Stevens was expected to live for five years.

Ken Block, president of the Edmonton firefighters union said Stevens' death is a reminder of the risks these heroes take. Block says firefighters are between two and four times more likely to develop certain cancers, and Stevens is the fifth Edmonton firefighter to die of cancer since 2004.

It takes a special person to make saving others' lives a priority. To risk death in so many ways -- for the benefit of strangers -- must be the true definition of selflessness. And thank goodness for these selfless individuals who help keep the rest of us safe.

Once in awhile, I come across a story and all I am left wondering is -- how did that happen?! Here's another story for the how did that happen file. Derek Kirchen, 67, a retired construction worker, kept collapsing and he kept getting pneumonia. While the doctors said that could not be sure to the reasons why Kirchen was suffering in this way, they guessed it might be due to lung cancer -- even though the tests and x-rays failed to indicate he had the definitive signs of lung cancer. But that was their best guess -- lung cancer. An alarming suggestion to make to someone suffering symptoms with no other explanation. Kirchen was scheduled for exploratory surgery and what the surgeon found surprised everyone. When the black lump was removed from Kirchen's left lung, it turned out to be a cashew. Kirchen says he hasn't had a cashew since Christmas 2004.

In the news feature, Kirchen is quoted as saying, "I just don't know how it got there. It's a complete mystery. When I came round all the nurses were giggling, as they couldn't believe it was a nut. I can't remember choking on a nut. It's ironic really as I don't even like the darned things." Better a cashew than cancer. It's an odd but happy ending.

And not to make disparaging comparisons to one part of the world over another, but of all the news stories that seem most fit for the how did that happen file, two others occurred in the same part of the world. I refer you to the lung cancer patient found smoldering in his hospital bed and the one where surgeons removed a healthy kidney and left the patient with only one kidney -- the kidney riddled with cancerous tumors. The stories about George McGarry and John Heron did not have such a happy ending. It makes you wonder though -- is the medical community there different than elsewhere -- or are these events happening elsewhere but simply not making the news?

Bureaucratic silliness or grinchy meanspiritedness? Here's the facts. In 2003, Ronald Michalowicz, a fire inspector for the village of Bedford Park, was diagnosed with tongue cancer. He was not given great odds on surviving his cancer. He kept working while going through chemotherapy. Chemotherapy was rough -- he lost 107 pounds.

In 2004, at the end of chemotherapy, but before radiation treatment began, he finally took a leave of absence from a job he had worked 28 years. The community cared about one of its own enough to raise $25,000 dollars to help Michalowicz with medical and living expenses. Cancer is expensive.

Miraculously, he beat the odds and his cancer went into remission. When he went back to work, he was fired. Why? According to village officials, he had accepted monetary contributions from the community in violation of the Illinois Gift Ban Act and village code prohibiting employees from soliciting gifts that could affect their decision-making. He hadn't asked anyone for money. A building inspector, Steve Edwards, cleared a form letter with the mayor at the time, Ronald Robison, to ask for contributions on behalf of Michalowicz. There is a new mayor now. Michalowicz only has one more year to work before he is eligible for retirement. What's really going on? You decide. 

A nurse discovered lung cancer patient George McGarry, 72, had set himself on fire because, while he was smoking in his hospital bed, he set fire to the oxygen being piped through tubes in his nose. He died of a heart attack four days later as a result of his injuries. As I read this story, I thought the name of the hospital sounded familiar. It is. I remember it from the post I did recently about John Heron, diagnosed with kidney cancer, who went in for surgery to have his diseased kidney removed, only the surgeon removed the healthy kidney by mistake.

I am certain there are hundreds of hospital horror stories that could be told, and perhaps Ayr Hospital has made the news only because of the bizarre and unbelievable circumstances of late where patients are harmed in the most inefficient ways, but really -- there are some stories that leave you with such a sense of stunned disbelief you are left wondering if the world tilted just a bit more while you were sleeping, rotating ever closer into a dimension of precarious insanity. And what was a lung cancer patient doing smoking in his hospital bed? Yes, I know, it's the bad stuff that makes the news, but these stories are unusually disturbing, don't you think?