Jun 12, 2017 By Harry Funk 4 min read

On his 18th birthday, Frank Duranti applied to join his local volunteer fire department.

“My father had a little restaurant in Wilkinsburg, and we did a lot of catering. We were in fire halls all over the county and the city,” Duranti, now 60, said. “I just loved the fire trucks and everything.”

For the past 26 years, he has continued his service in Mt. Lebanon, serving as the department’s secretary while at various times as firefighter, apparatus operator and emergency medical technician.

He also participates in plenty of training drills, including one in the fall that always will stick in his memory.

”One of our deputy chiefs, Kevin Maehling, told me, ‘You’re yellow,'” Duranti recalled, with the reference being to the jaundiced appearance of his skin. “I said, ‘No, I’m not.’ But I went to a doctor the next day, and they found there was a blockage of one of the bile ducts.”

A subsequent computerized tomography scan revealed spots on his lungs, and a wedge resection, the removal of a triangular slice of tissue from his right lung, tested positive for cancer. That was in early December, just a few weeks after fellow Mt. Lebanon firefighter Matt Kelsey was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

Duranti, who eventually learned that he had a tumor in his biliary tract, is working toward raising awareness about the growing number of active and retired firefighters with cancer diagnoses.

When he joined Edgewood’s department in 1974, the long-term ramifications of exposure to smoke and what it carries was not a primary consideration.

“Back then, I guess, the more smoke you ate as a firefighter, the better of a firefighter you were,” he recalled. “Nobody knew any better. The dirtier your coat, it was like a badge of honor.”

Respiratory equipment was relatively primitive compared with today, and most of the buildings to which fire personnel responded were constructed of materials like wood and textiles.

“But now, there are so many Class 1 carcinogens everywhere,” Duranti said.

In 2011, the state Legislature took steps to acknowledge the growing number of afflicted individuals by amending the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act to include what is sometimes referred to as the Firefighter Cancer Presumption Law, under which firefighters are entitled to a presumption that the cancer is work-related.

While the measure addresses the issue after the fact, many departments are being proactive.

“In Mt. Lebanon, we have a very, very good safety committee, and what we’re focusing more now on is cancer prevention. For a while, we’ve had a rule with our turnout gear,” Duranti said about the firefighters’ on-scene personal protective equipment, “that we don’t take it into the offices or the living areas at the fire department.”

Because a majority of department members are volunteers, many simply would toss their equipment into their vehicles following a blaze.

“We don’t do any of that anymore,” Duranti said. “After any structure, any smoke conditions or potential carcinogens, we wash our gear, not only our turnout gear, but the clothes that we’re wearing, our station gear and everything else, too. And then we shower.”

To support Duranti, along with Kelsey and the wife of another Mt. Lebanon firefighter, Central Blood Drive is holding a blood drive on June 17.

“Thankfully, I haven’t needed any blood or transfusions. I don’t have that type of cancer,” Duranti said, explaining that he certainly appreciates the need for replenishing blood supplies, especially as the summer approaches.

As for his own health, he is in the midst of chemotherapy and is happy to report the results of a scan his doctor conducted recently:

“He told me, ‘The scan showed zero growth, zero movement, zero spread.’ So he was thrilled.”