Hundreds of South Carolina first responders honored a longtime firefighter and state trooper battling cancer by lining the streets recently as he returned home for hospice care.
Last fall, David Cook, who worked for more than 25 years for fire-rescue and law enforcement agencies around the state, was diagnosed with a rare bile duct cancer, years after overcoming kidney cancer, according to the Island Packet in Hilton Head. He had been receiving treatment at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and on June 21, he was traveling to the Hampton Regional Medical Center in Varnville for hospice care.
Around 400 fire and police vehicles—including the South Carolina Highway Patrol, Allendale County EMS and Beaufort County EMS, agencies he worked at over the years since starting his emergency services career as a high school junior—turned out along the 80-mile route to escort Cook on his final ride. He died Monday morning.
