AUSTIN (KXAN) — After nearly two decades with the Austin Fire Department, one firefighter is fighting for her own life against cancer while also pushing back after a denied worker’s compensation claim.
Lt. Suzanne La Follette, 46, has pictures from her 19-year career — 16 of those years spent on a fire engine — including one of her at her first fire. Looking back, she wishes she had been more careful.
“It was good, but man, that me did not know what was gonna happen,” she said. “It used to be the culture, that it was really cool to have some really dirty turnouts because it had meant you had fought some good fires, and we would wear them to medical calls frequently and sleep right next to them.”
Suzanne received her stage four uterine cancer diagnosis in May. It was just a month after she and her wife, Sarah La Follette, married. She said it’s a daily battle while they raise two of their five kids who still live at home…