DETROIT – A Detroit firefighter diagnosed with stage four cancer said he believes the system failed him during his fight.
Detroit Fire Department Captain Dan Schaecher, 51, has been a firefighter for 30 years.
“I began having headaches in January. Every day,” Schaecher said. “I woke up on February 1 with vision issues. I had, like, a floater in my right eye, and went to the doctor and he heard that and immediately sent me to the ER. They did a CT of my head and came back and came back and told me that they had found a mass in the right side of my brain. Which turned out to be cancer.”
Schaecher said he was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma that began in his kidneys and worked its way up to his brain and lungs. The father of two would spend the next two months in and out of the hospital getting treatment.
“I had a craniotomy. They went in, they removed a golf ball-sized tumor from the right side of my brain. After that, I had to have laser radiation on my head to take care of anything that they couldn’t see with the naked eye. And now I’m going through immunotherapy. So, every two weeks, I go for treatments and I’m on medication every day,” Schaecher said.
There was another complication. One he never saw coming.
“During that month I had to go back to the hospital and I had blood clots and the ER physician told my wife to get my family together because they didn’t expect me to make it through the night,” Schaecher said. “At that time, I had no coverage.”
Schaecher said that two different times, for two different reasons, his medical care under worker’s compensation was dropped. The first time was in February. A notice of dispute document shows his case was referred to the Christopher Slezak First Responder Presumed Coverage Fund.
His concern was if the medical care through workman’s comp covered him -- he would get his full salary. Schaecher said if he followed the advice to use the Slezak Fund, he would only get 80% of his salary.
So, how many days was he not covered? That is in dispute. He says more than 30 days. The city says he was covered every single day.
The second time he said he was dropped was May 12. A notice of dispute document states his diagnosis is not related to his employment duties.
Schaecher said he was not covered for two days before the decision was reversed. Schaecher wants to know why he even had to deal with the stress of this?
“I’m told several different things. I’m told ‘human resources, risk management, comp one.’ I, quite frankly, I don’t know who makes those decisions and at this point I don’t really care. I just need it to be done right. I need to know that I’m gonna be covered, my family’s gonna be covered. It doesn’t matter who’s responsible. Everybody’s got to get together, get on the same page, and do the right thing,” Schaecher said.
The Investigators at Local 4 reached out to both the Detroit Fire Department and the Detroit mayor’s office. The mayor’s office said the Detroit Fire Department doesn’t manage this process and that instead it’s the human resources department.
Here’s the full statement from the city’s Human Resources Department:
“When it comes to worker’s compensation claims, the role of the Detroit Fire Department is to assist with documentation related to the initial claim and to advocate for the members when concerns arise.
“Captain Schaecher’s medical bills are being paid by the City of Detroit. DFD Administration has been in contact with him and has advocated for him on more than one occasion.
“Mayor Sheffield has been made aware of ongoing issues surrounding workers’ compensation claims and has directed HR to come up with a better process to ensure employees feel supported.
“We are not able to comment further, as our policy is currently under administrative and legal review.”
Human Resources Department, City of Detroit
“You have every other member out there that’s going, ‘Man, if this happens to me, am I going to be taken care of?’ We need the city to come to us and say, ‘Hey, we want to make this right. This is the process going forward, and we’re going to make sure every one of our members are taken care of from here on out,’” Union spokesperson Tom Gehart said.
When Local 4 reached out to the city, they told us that he’s covered.
“He is, thank God, he is now. And it’s because of his fight that he had to do while he’s battling stage four cancer, and the fight that this union has to do to keep things going for these men and women. It’s shameful that it has to come to something like this,” Gehart said.
“People need to know that I’m not a number. The other members that are going through this are not a number, we’re not a line item on an audit. These are lives that are affected. And we gave everything. And when it’s time to be taken care of, we need to know that we don’t have to worry about things like this,” Schaecher said.
The city said that Mayor Sheffield has been made aware of ongoing issues surrounding workers compensation claims and directed Human Resources to come up with a better process.