At home, laundry is a simple chore. At a fire station, laundry is an evolving safety protocol.
For the East Manatee Fire Rescue, the death of Edward Wadlinger III in 2017 gave the then-new Chief Lee Whitehurst added incentive to make changes to how lingering carcinogens on gear were handled after a fire.
Wadlinger retired because of a cancer diagnosis and died two years later. He was 42…