SUN CITY, AZ — The heartbreaking discovery that one of his own firefighters had cancer has a fire chief joining the call to fix what fire officials say is a punctuation problem in state law that’s forcing firefighters to battle for workers’ comp.
For two decades, Rob Schmitz has worked for the Sun City Fire and Medical Department. The last five years he’s been the chief in the tight-knit retirement community.
“A lot of people turn to us and look to help solve their problems,” he said.
With 100 employees across three fire stations, employees say they feel more like family than co-workers.
Their service can come at great cost. Cancer is a leading cause of death for firefighters, according to the Firefighter Cancer Alliance.
Determined to keep employees safe, the department got a grant a few years ago to offer life-saving cancer screenings.
“They do a head-to-toe screening and all the blood tests,” Schmitz said.
One of those screenings delivered devastating news. Firefighter Matt O’Reilly was diagnosed with cancer last year. He was just 37 at the time, a husband with young children.
ABC15 detailed his story in a previous report.
Schmitz still becomes emotional more than a year later when he talks about learning O’Reilly had cancer.
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“Obviously, as a fire chief, you care about all your people,” he said.
The fire family stepped in after learning of the diagnosis. O’Reilly recalls how he and his wife, Whitney, arrived at the medical center on the day of surgery. The sun was not even up yet. He saw a fire truck parked outside the surgery center. Several co-workers had showed up to lend support.
His entire thyroid had to be removed. He said the surgeon also found cancer in several lymph nodes. Surgery stretched for nine hours.
Arizona has a law that considers certain cancers are presumed to be work-related for firefighters, making them eligible for workers’ comp benefits. O’Reilly had applied for worker’s compensation. As he recovered, he got bad news about his workers’ comp claim.
The fire department’s workers’ comp provider denied his claim.
O’Reilly had adenocarcinoma, according to court records. Adenocarcinoma is on the state’s list of presumptive cancers. But in the law, there’s no comma after the word “adenocarcinoma” and before the words “or mesothelioma of the respiratory tract.”
So the fire department’s insurance provider argued in court filings that adenocarcinoma is only covered as a presumptive cancer if it’s “of the respiratory tract.”
The insurance provider claimed adenocarcinoma is not a stand-alone cancer, but a description of some types of cancers, in this case – only those in the respiratory tract. O’Reilly’s cancer was not “of the respiratory tract.”
As ABC15 was researching this story, the insurance provider reversed course, saying in late November that it would now cover his claim.
Dan Freiberg, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Arizona, said adding a comma into the law would spare firefighters from having to fight for their benefits. Freiberg said he is aware of “at least three or four” similar denials where firefighters with this type of cancer had to fight for coverage.
“It's so obvious, right? We need that to be fixed,” he said.
It’s a fight the Sun City fire chief knows well.
“Anytime that we say, ‘this is the intent of the law,’ if we have to clean that language up, I believe we should do that,” Schmitz said.
Firefighters aren’t the only ones who have concerns. Sun City’s insurance provider tells ABC15 they hope the Arizona Legislature will clarify the presumptive cancer statute to provide consistent guidance for Arizona firefighters.
Email ABC15 Investigator Anne Ryman at: anne.ryman@abc15.com, call her at 602-685-6345, or connect on X and Facebook.
