ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – Two St. Johns County leaders are pushing for significant changes at the state level to better protect firefighters who experience “line of duty” injuries or sicknesses.
The effort stems from a fire and explosion in St. Augustine in August 2011.
One firefighter told News4JAX he thought he was going to die that day.
“I walked up to a friend that responded from our station, Station 12, after that call. I hugged him,” said Pat Taaffe, who is a firefighter with St. Johns County Fire Rescue. “I said, ‘Oh my God. We are so lucky.’”
That fire is considered arguably the worst ever in St. Augustine.
Taaffe was one of the first responders to get to that scene.
“[I remember] being scared,” he said about that day. “Being scared, like I’ve never been scared before.”
Taaffe said it got worse less than a minute after arriving.
“Physically, we ran and hid behind the truck as a huge ball of fire went above our heads hundreds of feet,” Taaffe said, describing the explosion at the gas station. “There is no doubt in my mind I thought we would lose our lives there. We thought this could kill us.”
Every firefighter who responded to the fire survived that day in 2011. But what has happened over the many years since has changed so many lives.
Taaffe was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer in 2015.
“I had 12 tumors in my liver and my lymph nodes as well,” he said. “I had eight months of chemotherapy and a major surgery.”
Taaffe is now cancer-free.
He said he doesn’t know if his cancer diagnosis was tied to his work.
“I don’t know exactly where it came from. But I know I do not have a family history of cancer,” Taafee said. “It very well could be from what I do for a living.”
Taaffe considers himself to be one of the lucky ones.
At least two other firefighters have told News4JAX they were forced to medically retire because of sicknesses they were diagnosed with that they blame on the St. Augustine explosion.
Recently, a former St. Johns County Fire Rescue engineer shared what happened to him. He asked News4JAX not to release his name because of pending litigation.
His last day working as a firefighter was in August 2019. He said he had to retire after being diagnosed with PTSD, dementia and other neurological impairments from the fire.
Then there’s the case of the late Michael Riley, who News4JAX first introduced to our viewers in 2021.
Riley, a firefighter with the St. Augustine Fire Department on the day of the explosion, was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease in 2016.
When Riley and his wife, Lani, met our news crew, he could not walk on his own and could barely talk. He died about a year and a half later. He was 61 years old.
Those cases are leading to passionate work from David Stevens, who is the union president for St. Johns County Professional Firefighters, and St. Johns County commissioner Sarah Arnold.
Both are trying to get Florida’s presumptive disability coverage for firefighters to expand to include neurological diseases, like Parkinson’s disease.
“I cannot imagine that level of uncertainty being the individual, being the firefighter,” Arnold said. “Or being their family and knowing what is potentially coming.”
Qualified firefighters would receive financial benefits that can help with day-to-day expenses if they cannot work anymore.
“Watching [Riley] go through what he and his family went through, I don’t ever want to see another firefighter have to suffer that way,” Stevens said.
“We are talking about our first responders,” said Arnold. “These are the men and women who put their lives on the line for us. There is nothing more important than that.”
Stevens and Arnold want Florida lawmakers to assemble a task force to study and research the connection between neurological disorders and firefighting.
They eventually would like them to discuss, establish, and pass a bill during the 2025 legislative session.
That work is already underway.
In January, Arnold and Stevens met with state Sen. Travis Hutson and Rep. Cyndi Stevenson at the state capitol in Tallahassee.
Then in March, Arnold traveled to Washington, D.C., to speak with Congresswoman Kat Cammack. She represents Florida’s 3rd congressional district. There is an effort now to get this kind of expansion on the books on the federal level along with additional mental health incentives.
In Florida, presumptive disability benefits currently cover firefighters diagnosed with cancer from their line of work, which became law in 2019 and gives a $25,000 cash payout.
If the expansion ultimately happens. Florida would become the fourth state to cover neurological diseases for firefighters. That kind of coverage already exists in New York, Virginia and Indiana.
Dr. Marcia Ratner is a board-certified toxicologist and neuroscientist.
Her research, dating back to 2005, was used in cases in Indiana, Florida and even Canada.
Ratner says depending on the exposure to toxic chemicals or burning metals, firefighters can not only be diagnosed with diseases like Parkinson’s but can get them younger.
“We know that firefighters are exposed to chemicals that can damage the nervous system,” Ratner said. “So why is it that if you are exposed to chemicals that can damage the nervous system over an entire career that there is any discussion about the fact that a lifetime of exposure might be a contributing factor in your risk for developing a neurogenerative disease?”
“It is eye-opening to see all of these things happening before you,” Stevens said. “You are proud to see that it is getting more attention in the public. At the same time, it is making you reflect on the horrible things that firefighters do have to suffer with.”
“The end result would be great to recognize that the state of Florida has firefighters’ backs,” Taaffe said. “That they are there to protect us. We are out there for them and they are here for us.”
This effort is in the preliminary stages but there seems to be some momentum.
State Fire Marshal Jimmy Patronis was in Jacksonville on May 2 as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill that increases support for firefighters who are diagnosed with cancer from their line of work.
News4JAX asked Patronis if any expansion to cover neurological diseases is realistic, and he shared his thoughts:
“When I tell people, usually when there’s that much smoke, there is some fire,” he said. To use that play of art, this will be an issue that I am sure there will be a legislator that will say, ‘You know what? I want to address this issue.’
“I do think all of that is on the table as we discover more and more of these diseases that are work-related,” Patronis said. “We need to give our first responders a peace of mind that they deserve.
“One of the challenges is [in that profession] they do not like to show weakness. They do not like to come forward with the challenges that they are having physically. It took a while for us to be able to get PTSD as a covered benefit in the state of Florida. It took a while for us to get cancer as a covered benefit.
“The best way to start that dialogue is our brave first responders showing and admitting that they have issues,” Patronis said. “That gives us a chance to make policy change.”
For the next step, Arnold and Stevens are working to find a group willing to do a research study to eventually present to legislators in 2025.