A retired Shreveport chief who spoke about the dangers of firefighter cancer in a moving video has passed away Friday.
Sandy Davis worked for the Shreveport Fire Department for 26 years before taking a job with the Louisiana's Homeland Security and Emergency Management agency.
About five years ago, Davis was diagnosed with colorectal cancer.
“We didn’t used to think it was job related. If a building didn’t fall on you or fell off a tailboard, it wasn’t job related," Davis said in a 2015 interview with Firehouse.com. "Over the past 20 years we have come to realize we are exposed to toxins and combustion in the air and it is job related.”
Between treatments, the former safety chief focused on trying to help educate firefighters on the importance of wearing proper PPE and taking any of the precautions possible.
Davis worked with Shreveport firefighter John Phelan to produce a video that documented his years-long battle with cancer.
“If you never smoked a cigarette or drank, you couldn’t talk about the experience. I can talk about cancer and the treatments and it has given me the ability to influence other people,” said Davis. “I believe that is the reason that I was allowed to have this experience,” said Davis. “Probably anybody hearing me say that would think I was crazy, but I really believe this.”
A funeral service will be held Tuesday, Nov. 7, at Summer Grove Baptist Church in Shreveport. It begins at 10 a.m.
