Christmas was around the corner. Three-year-old Antonio Garcia, his 6-year-old brother Rudy and their 5-year-old sister Yolanda were asleep. Their parents, Rudy and Maria, had left them in the care of their grandmother while they went to get medicine from the pharmacy for Yolanda, who wasn’t feeling well. None of them realized the house was on fire until it was well on its way to becoming an inferno.
When she noticed the fire, Antonio’s grandmother rushed out of the house to a small converted garage where extended family were living. A nephew was able to rescue Antonio from the blaze. But then the fire escalated, preventing him from reaching Rudy and Yolanda, who was born with cerebral palsy and unable to walk.
By the time Dallas Fire Capt. Harold Minter and Dallas Fire-Rescue Officer Jimi Hendrix arrived on the scene, the parents had returned from the pharmacy. Maria told Minter and Hendrix that her two youngest children were trapped inside. She pointed to their bedrooms.
Minter and Hendrix had been working at Dallas Fire-Rescue since the late 1950s and 1960s, respectively. They had joined the department for similar reasons, for “something much more fulfilling to him,” Hendrix’s family wrote in his June 8, 2022, obituary. They were dressed in their protective suits and oxygen masks, ready to fight the inferno.
What they didn’t realize is that their protective suits may have been slowly poisoning them.
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Several lawsuits have been filed by firefighters, an international firefighter association and two state attorneys general against the chemical companies that make the protective gear and firefighting foam. The products contain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, better known as PFAS. The synthetic chemicals are widely used in products for their resistance to heat, water and oil and for their non-sticking properties. Studies suggest that some types of PFAS might be linked to cancer.
Since 2005, more than 6,400 PFAS-related lawsuits have been filed, Bloomberg Law reported in May 2022. DuPont, Dynax Corp., 3M, Kiddle-Fenwell and National Foam Inc., are named in various suits. The list of chemical companies being sued continues to grow.
In February 2022, more than a dozen Massachusetts firefighters who serve in Boston, Brockton, Fall River, Worcester and Norwood filed a lawsuit against DuPont, 3M, AGC Chemicals Americas Inc., Buckeye Fire Equipment and 19 other companies for using the “forever chemicals” in their firefighter gear and foam “when those companies have long known of the dangers of that class of chemicals,” according to a Feb. 2022 Boston Globe report.
As the Globe reported, the 15 firefighters didn’t know of the presence of PFAS in their gear until blood tests revealed high levels of PFAS in their systems in December 2021, the same month that DuPont planned to phase out buying fire-fighting foam made with PFAS chemicals.
“The very gear designed to protect firefighters, to keep us safe, is killing us.” – IAFF President Edward Kelly
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The Florida Attorney General’s Office sued DuPont and 13 companies in May 2022 for failing to include a product warning on the firefighting foam that includes PFOA, a common type of PFAS that include chemicals such as perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctane. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, classifies PFOA as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” It’s known to cause testicular and kidney cancer, according to a March 21 report by the American Cancer Society.
"DuPont subsequently found that PFOA is 'toxic' and that 'continued exposure is not tolerable,' but did not disclose this to the public or to the United States Environmental Protection Agency," Florida said in the filing.
Daniel Turner, a spokesperson for DuPont, said there is a difference between operations of DuPont de Nemours and legacy E.I. du Pont de Nemours (EID) operations from decades ago. EID spun off its chemicals businesses to the Chemours Co., Turner said. In 2017, a merger between Dow Chemical Co. and EID grouped the remaining product lines, leading to the creation of three new companies two years later. EID started doing business as Corteva Agriscience, an agriculture business that includes the former agriculture businesses of the Dow Chemical Co. Then there’s Dow, one of the largest chemical producers in the world.
DuPont de Nemours, Turner said, inherited the specialty products manufacturing assets of both EID and Dow.
“To implicate DuPont de Nemours in these past issues ignores this corporate evolution, and the movement of product lines and personnel that now exist with entirely different companies,” Turner wrote in an Aug. 23 email. “DuPont de Nemours has never manufactured PFOA, PFOS or firefighting foam. While we don’t comment on litigation matters, we believe these complaints are without merit, and we look forward to vigorously defending our record of safety, health and environmental stewardship.”
In 1971, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) created standards for firefighters’ personal protective equipment. Their turnout gear, for example, consists of three layers: an outer shell that could withstand temperatures of 500 degrees Fahrenheit for about five minutes, a middle layer that acted as a moisture barrier to keep water out and an inner layer that protected against convection, conduction and radiation heat transfers, according to a June 16, 2008, report by Fire Engineering magazine.
PFAS chemicals provide the fire resistance the coat needs. Jim McDade, a firefighter and president of the Dallas Fire Fighters Association, said. PFAS are used in the moisture barrier between the other two layers, but they’ve also been detected in the other layers of the coat, according to the University of California, Berkley’s Greener Solutions report “Replacing PFAS in Firefighter Turnout Gear.”
Since the 1940s, PFAS chemicals, which are man-made, have been used in consumer products around the world. Nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, stain-resistant fabrics, carpets, some cosmetics and firefighting products that resist grease, oil and water have included PFAS chemicals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) reports that during their production and use, PFAS chemicals can migrate into the air, soil and water. Most don’t break down chemically and remain in the environment. They’ve been found in human and animal blood all over the world.
PFAS are also at low levels in a variety of food products and in the environment, the ATSDR reports. “Some PFAS can build up in people and animals with repeated exposure over time.”
Maria Garcia, with her sons Antonio (left) and Rudy. Harold Minter and a partner rescued two of the Garcia children from a fire in 1974.
Mike Brooks
In March, the IAFF, which represents 334,000 members, filed a lawsuit against the National Fire Protection Association for its role, according to the IAFF, in imposing a testing standard “that effectively requires the use of PFAS in firefighter protective gear.”
The IAFF claims that Section 8.62 of “Standard on Protective Ensembles for Structural Fire Fighting and Proximity Fire Fighting” necessitates the use of PFAS in the middle moisture barrier to satisfy the ultraviolet light degradation test because the time of exposure to xenon-sourced UV light, which tests the fire resistance, “was deliberately chosen.” They argue that a shorter exposure time would allow other materials to pass, but a longer exposure time does not, according to the March 16 lawsuit.
“The very gear designed to protect firefighters, to keep us safe, is killing us,” IAFF President Edward Kelly said in a March 16 press release. “Standard 1971 needlessly requires the use of PFAS in firefighter gear.”
According to the group of three litigation firms that make up PFAS Law Firms, representing IAFF in the lawsuit, nearly 75% of deaths among firefighters involved occupational cancer.
“Three of every four names added to the IAFF Fallen Firefighter Memorial Wall in 2022 died of occupational cancer,” the PFAS Law Firms claimed on their website. “Firefighters battling cancer, in remission from cancer, and the families of those on the Memorial Wall deserve increased support — which is exactly what the assembled PFAS legal team will strive to provide.”
Tim Burn, the press secretary for the IAFF, said that the organization sent a memo to its 3,500 local fire-rescue affiliates, including Dallas, and encouraged members “to reduce their exposure to PFAS by limiting the use of turnout gear only to emergency responses where its protection is a necessity.”
“Wearing all PPE and self-contained breathing apparatuses during firefighting, overhaul, and working in smoke remains the best first line of defense to protect from fireground contaminants until PFAS-free alternatives are available,” according to the Aug. 23, 2022, memo from the IAFF and the Metropolitan Fire Chiefs Association.
“We have to fight whenever we have an inactive person who is diagnosed with cancer,” said Dallas Fire Fighter Association’s McDade. “We have to get the city to declare it as an on-duty injury, and every time we have to fight.
“As for a retiree, it’s a bigger battle.”
The Firehouse
Suzanne Minter would visit her father at Fire Station 3 when she was a child in the 1970s. The station has been located on Malcolm X Boulevard since the road was known as Oakland Avenue, back when Minter began working with the department in the late 1950s. The 3’s old location on Gaston Avenue was one of the last stations to house horse-drawn fire equipment, according to the Dallas Fire-Rescue History on the Dallas City Hall website.
Minter’s daughter recalled her father wearing the protective gear on several occasions. He and his colleagues were constantly called out, not only to fight fires but also to respond to accidents and 911 calls from residents.
But Suzanne wasn’t the only child to visit Minter at Fire Station 3.
Kelly Kovar was 12 years old when, in the late 1980s, he sent a letter to Minter and others at Fire Station 3. He described watching the fire trucks go by his father’s worksite at the corner of Gaston and Good Latimer and asked about the job and what they do.
One of Minter’s medics, Kovar recalled, sent a two-page letter to him, signed “The Men at the 3’s”, and talked about different aspects of the fire department — from the 52 stations and engines that pump water to the 20 trucks that carry ladders and the 22 ambulances with two extra that go in service on the weekends. They sent him a package that included an orange metallic “E3” sticker that went on their helmets so they could identify one another whenever they were fighting a fire. They also invited him to visit the station.
“Thanks for writing us and showing your support for the Dallas Fire Dept. where we work down here at 3’s. We don’t have too many people who appreciate us or the work we do for them. So when we have somebody write or call or say a little thank you, it really makes our day,” the Men of the 3’s wrote. “...The most important part of being a firefighter or paramedic is the willingness to help people. You can start that at any age. And your school is also very important. The Dallas Fire Dept. wants all its members to have some college behind them.”
Kovar said that he spent the day with Minter and other firefighters, who let him try out some of the equipment and ride in one of the fire trucks to Fair Park, where he raised the ladders and pumped water.
The day would inspire him to join Dallas Fire-Rescue when he got older.
“The whole station is a camaraderie, a brotherhood,” Kovar said. “But going to visit the station is completely different. You get to see how they live and function during the day. … It wasn’t show-and-tell, like when they bring the fire trucks to the schools. It’s insight into how they operate every day.”
Heroes
In early December 1974, Rudy Garcia, who was 6, was awakened by the cries of his little sister Yolanda. He saw fire all around them. Their mother, Maria, and their father, Rudy, had just returned from the pharmacy and were standing outside of their burning home with the firefighters, Minter, Hendrix, and other family members. Their brother Antonio was on the front lawn with the others. Rudy and Yolanda were the only ones left inside.Despite it being cold and rainy, the flames had gotten too high for the family to save them, and Minter was somewhat discouraged to go inside when they arrived and saw the burning home — until he heard Maria calling out that two of her children were still inside.
“He did not think twice about going in,” Antonio said.
Minter entered the house through a window. Hendrix wasn’t far behind him. He began searching in the heat and darkness for possible survivors. He knew that their chances of survival were slim in the smoke-filled burning home.
He found young Rudy covered in soot and crumpled on the wooden floor in the bedroom. He grasped the child and rushed him to the window where an ambulance crew waited.
Hendrix then discovered Yolanda and rushed her from the home.
In March 1975, the city awarded a Medal of Valor for bravery to each firefighter.
“These are things he would never talk about,” Hendrix’s family wrote in his obituary. “He was a quiet, modest man who wanted no thanks or attention for doing what he thought was right. He remained with the department until his retirement in 2003.”
Minter seemed to be the same way. For years, he was a regular at a nearby Mexican restaurant in Irving. It was a small, well-reviewed neighborhood diner. As a retired firefighter, he became familiar with the restaurant owners yet never discussed his firefighting career, the Medal of Valor or the bravery he had shown when he rushed into the house to save the children.
“He [Harold Minter] did not think twice about going in.” – Antonio Garcia
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Neither the owners of Rudy's Mexican Restaurant, the very same Garcias from the 1974 fire, nor Minter realized that they were again crossing paths all these years later. The man who had helped save their children from the blaze had become one of their favorite customers.
“I didn’t know he was still alive,” said Rudy Garcia, who grew up to become a priest at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Frisco.
Recognition
In late August 2022, Maria Garcia walked into the hospital room at a recovery center in North Richland Hills to meet the firefighter who had saved her children. Her husband, Rudy, and her son Antonio were with her, and her son Rudy was on his way. “It was deeply emotional and brought back memories and the ability to say thank you,” Father Garcia said.
When Suzanne Minter called to invite them, Antonio said that his mother felt sorry about it because she had never thanked Minter for saving her children. She didn’t speak English well and was more concerned about her children, both of whom had suffered severe burns. Thinking about that night, Antonio said, also evoked negative memories.
“But if it wasn’t for the heroics of the firemen, she wouldn’t have her daughter and her older son,” he said. “It was very impactful to her.”
Minter didn’t look like his robust self from the old photographs that Suzanne shared with the Observer. His health had deteriorated. He’d been in and out of ICU since January 2022, fighting lung, skin cancer and heart health issues.
“It’s crazy how the hospital would push him out so early and within no more than two to three weeks he would be right back in ICU every time,” Suzanne said. “I have 15 discharge papers from 15 admissions. And it has always been his lungs being the cause of his problems, not enough oxygen or blood-gas issues."
One reason for his discharges involved Medicare, Suzanne said, because it wouldn’t pay after 30 days.
About five months after Minter’s hospital stays began in January 2022, his former partner, Hendrix, died at the age of 79. Suzanne said the cause of death was prostate cancer.
Firefighters have only a short window of time after they leave the fire department to seek coverage for their cancer as an on-duty injury, said Elaine Maddox, a recently retired fire inspector and assistant chaplain for Dallas Fire-Rescue. They need to have been diagnosed before they leave the department, she said.
Maddox said they also have only 30 days to file a workman’s comp claim, and they often end up in court after their claim is denied.
“Once they retire, maybe five years or so down the way, and they get cancer, there’s not a law in Texas like California where they have within 10 years of when they leave the firefighting profession to get coverage,” Maddox said.
According to the California Professional Firefighters, under its Cancer Presumption guidelines, any cancer that manifests during a period while a member is in service with a department is covered. This coverage also applies to members who leave the service and develop cancer within 10 years of their departure, depending on the length of their employment.
In Texas, a claimant must have been a full-time professional firefighter for more than five years, have regularly responded to fire or firefighting calls and have responded to an incident with a “documented release of radiation or suspected carcinogen,” according to “Dallas Fire-Rescue Cancer Awareness & Prevention,” a 2017 presentation by the City Council’s Public Safety Committee.
There is a presumption that firefighters are eligible for coverage unless their employer — in this case the city of Dallas — can prove that the cancer wasn’t the result of their firefighting duties. Without the presumption, the firefighter must prove it to receive benefits.
“We got lots and lots of firefighters dying of cancer after their retirement,” Maddox said.
A Family
As her father fought against an unseen enemy, Suzanne Minter began posting to the retired firefighters’ page on Facebook, asking if there were firefighters who had worked with her father — Capt. Harold Minter — and if they would come visit him at the hospital. Several rescue workers visited him over the course of his hospital stays, including those from his old firehouse.“When we have a retired firefighter pass away, we’ll have a bagpiper there if the family wants and the last alarm bell ceremony,” Maddox said. “The fire department is a family affair.”
That family affair was showcased in Suzanne’s 2022 video recording of Kelly Kovar visiting her father shortly after he awoke from a coma. Kovar, who’s now one of the captains at Fire Station 7, credits his childhood visit with Minter for inspiring him to become a firefighter in the early 2000s.
Minter had taken a photograph with 12-year-old Kovar on his trip to the station in the late 1980s.
“I still have that picture hanging in my locker,” Kovar said.
Nearly a year later, in early April 2023, Minter was home and spending time with family. Suzanne said he seemed to be doing well. He was moving around and walked out to his front porch to check out Suzanne’s son-in-law’s new pickup truck while the rest of the family was in the backyard. He went out the front door and tripped over the threshold at the bottom of the door and fell inwards. He hit his head on a table in the entryway.
"We got lots and lots of firefighters dying of cancer after their retirement." – Elaine Maddox, retired Dallas fire inspector and assistant chaplain
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Dallas Fire-Rescue arrived to take him back to UT Southwestern for the last time. He’d only been home for a couple of weeks.
Minter’s family had been told that he would be discharged on Easter but then they got a call from the hospital that his blood work didn’t look good. He was going into septic shock and had to be moved to the ICU.
He was put on continuous dialysis and one day in early June, he had an IVC filter placed for blood clots, Suzanne said. The next morning he went into cardiac arrest.
Three rounds of chest compressions brought him back to life, Suzanne said.
“After that he really fought harder, but they had him so high on opioids. I think they overdosed him,” Suzanne said. “I walked in one day and his eyes were fixated on the ceiling, and he had a rigid look on him. I looked up why he would [have the look] he had and it said ‘opioid overdose,’ so I said that to the nurse, and a couple days later he was back; but he had that hardcore stare going on for almost a week.”
Minter had been under the care of Dr. Andrea Natale, a world-renowned heart doctor at the Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Institute at St. David’s Medical Center in Austin. Suzanne said that her father had gone through several heart procedures to correct what other heart doctors had gotten wrong.
In July, Suzanne began talking with her dad about the lawsuits that the firefighters and state attorneys general had filed against the chemical companies over the PFAS chemicals found in the firefighter turnout gear and firefighting foam. He had brought up asbestos, “about how he had basically swam in it,” she said. “He had a lot of skin cancer on his head, ears, nose and back.”
Minter died on July 30 in his ICU room at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He was 85.
“We do not even know how my dad died,” Suzanne said. “They instantly locked his MyChart the moment he died, and they never told us why he died. Did his heart stop?”
They’d find out a few weeks later when they received his death certificate from the state. Four reasons were listed on the certificate: cardiopulmonary arrest, multi-organ failure, septic shock and acute chronic renal failure.
A few days later, Dallas firefighters began moving back into Fire Station 3 after it had been temporarily closed for remodeling and asbestos removal and for what Jennifer Brown, a city spokesperson, called “environmental remediation.”
Asbestos was used as an inexpensive fire retardant in buildings constructed between the early 1940s and the 1970s, including some of the old fire stations around Dallas. It was used in insulation, tiles — roof, floor and ceiling — and paint. If the fibers are inhaled, they can accumulate in the lungs, causing lung cancer, asbestosis and mesothelioma, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The city has completed 16 of 26 asbestos surveys called for in the work plan. Brown called them “(limited) abatements” that were undertaken so the department could complete interior upgrades at selected fire stations under the 2017 Bond Proposition G.
“We got lots and lots of firefighters dying of cancer after their retirement,” Maddox said. said. “He started in 1958. I told my dad about [the lawsuits], and he said, ‘I’d like for you to call some attorneys on this.’”
The Bells Toll
A few weeks after Minter’s death, Father Garcia, Kovar and the crew from Fire Station 3 gathered at the Gateway Church of Dallas for a memorial to commemorate his passing. People filled the pews to pay their respects to the Medal of Valor recipient. His wife of 65 years, Patricia Minter, who left his side at the hospital only to go home and shower, and his daughter Suzanne, who had been on a quest to bring him closure before he passed, would soon hear the bagpipes playing and the fire alarm bell ringing to lay the fallen hero to rest.Minter wanted to be cremated. Suzanne said the family used the $1,200 they received from the Dallas Fire-Rescue to do so. His white urn, imprinted with a fire-rescue symbol, arrived a few days before his late August memorial service. It was on display that day, along with the firefighter’s standard turnout gear.
Dallas Fire-Rescue is limiting its use of turnout gear as the IAFF suggested, McDade said.
He mentioned recent federal legislation, signed into law last December, that requires the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to develop guidance for firefighters and other emergency response personnel on best practices, education programs and training to protect them from exposure to PFAS chemicals in their gear and foam.
The DHS curriculum is designed to reduce or eliminate exposure to PFAS, prevent the release of PFAS from foam into the environment and educate on foams and non-foam alternatives, personal protection equipment and other firefighting tools that don’t contain PFAS chemicals, according to the website Congress.gov.
That same month, 3M announced it would stop making PFAS chemicals and cease using them by the end of 2025, according to The Wall Street Journal.
But McDade said that manufacturers are struggling to get the PFAS chemicals out of the middle moisture later in the turnout gear. “That’s the million-dollar question,” he said. “That is what they are trying to develop.”
Another million-dollar question is why firefighters continue to work in a profession where cancer seems almost guaranteed.
“It’s the calling and the desire that God gave them to serve other people,” Maddox said. “Like my husband, who’s a firefighter, said, no day is the same.”
“We do not even know how my dad died.” – Suzanne Minter, Harold Minter's daughter
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At the memorial in early August, many who had gathered recalled their time with Minter. Maddox, who spent time with Minter before he died, met Father Garcia, whom Minter had saved, and recognized him.
As Maddox explained it, in 2012, a firefighter from Washington State had come to Dallas with his wife and small child to visit in-laws. It was Christmas time, and their son was excited to see the Christmas lights. He took off running and went through a glass door that shattered. A shard cut him deeply across his midsection.
Dallas Fire-Rescue arrived and took him to the emergency room.
When Maddox arrived, the family asked her if they could hold a mass for their child. She called a church and talked with Father Garcia, who agreed to come to the hospital.
“Minter saved him, and Rudy stepped in and did a service,” Maddox said.
Shortly before Minter’s memorial, Father Garcia spoke with the Observer about his time recovering from the burns on his face, hands, chest and legs at Parkland Hospital when he was a child and his decision to join the priesthood, which was inspired by his recovery. The church had helped his family financially and spiritually.
Father Garcia then reflected on meeting Minter in August 2022 at the hospital.
“It was a very emotional moment to meet the person who saved my life and the life of my sister,” he said. “It was something that impacted me deeply because I felt like I had an opportunity to say thank you to someone who made a difference in my life, my sister’s life and my family and the lives of the people whom I’ve helped with my priestly ministry. It would not have been possible if not for the valor of the firefighter to rescue people he didn’t know.”
