Early this month, Framingham, Massachusetts firefighter Mike Urban, 57, lost his battle with mesothelioma cancer. This aggressive disease that affects the protective lining of the body’s major cavities and organs is rare and caused almost exclusively by exposure to asbestos.
Urban’s passing comes on the heels of the loss of 58-year-old retired firefighter Michael Marshall to lung cancer last month. Lung cancer is yet another disease commonly cause by asbestos exposure, along with asbestosis.
Urban’s family has been unable to conclusively pinpoint the cause of the mesothelioma. His wife speculated that exposure to asbestos could have taken place in his childhood home, at a fire station, while firefighting or from using carpentry materials, as Urban was a self-employed carpenter before joining the Fire Department.
Asbestos is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulated mineral fiber has been commonly used in construction materials, as insulation and as a fire retardant. When asbestos is disturbed or burns, it realeases toxic fibers that become airborne and are easily inhaled. These fibers lodge in the lungs for decades causing damage. Urban had pleural mesothelioma, which specifically affects the lining of the lungs, leaving no doubt that he’d likely inhaled asbestos for a prolonged period of time.
The local Hollis Street and Saxonville fire stations both have had asbestos, and several years ago, an area in Station 2 was closed off and bolted before the contamination was cleaned up, making exposure at his station a real possibility.
“Mike was family, and we lost a member of our family, and we’ll deal with that the way any family does,” said Station 2 captain at the Saxonville firehouse Paul Barlow
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