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St. Bonifacius firefighter faces cancer battle with new state supports

For a decade, Bill Ewald has put his life on the line as a volunteer firefighter for St. Bonifacius Fire Department. But now he is facing his biggest battle yet.

ST. BONIFACIUS, Minn. (FOX 9) - For a decade, Bill Ewald has put his life on the line as a volunteer firefighter for St. Bonifacius Fire Department. But now he is facing his biggest battle yet.

"It was a shock. Now I've embraced it," said Ewald.

Ewald says he started losing weight and having to urinate more frequently after the beginning of the year. It wasn't until friends and family convinced him to get checked out by a doctor that he was eventually diagnosed with prostate cancer.

"Denial. Denial. But when reality set in that it was cancer, that's when it really hurt," said Ewald.

Studies show 68 percent of firefighters will be diagnosed with cancer, compared to 22 percent of the general population. Firefighting advocates believe firefighters are exposed to toxins in smoke, which are then absorbed through their skin despite their protective gear.

Last year, the state legislature approved funding for the Hometown Heroes Assistance Program, which provides a $20,000 payout to firefighters diagnosed with cancer, cardiac, and other critical illnesses to offset expenses caused by their care.

It also provides counseling for firefighters and their families and ongoing training about the health risks that come with the profession.

"I think it's important for firefighters to understand they are at greater risk. There are things they can do to mitigate those risks and minimize the potential of succumbing to cancer or cardiac or emotional trauma," said Wayne Kewitsch, Executive Director of the Minnesota Firefighters Initiative, a non-profit that advocates for firefighter health.

Ewald will have surgery next month to remove his prostate, and hopefully the cancer along with it. But he wants other firefighters to get a PSA blood test to see if they have prostate cancer before it's too late.

"It's unfortunate, but it's going to have a happy ending. I'm confident it was caught in time. I believe it's something that needs to have more attention paid to so it can be prevented in other firefighters," said Ewald.

Last week Wednesday, during the council workshop meeting before the regular council meeting, Rick Weible, former mayor of St. Bonifacius and current member of Midwest Swamp Watch gave a presentation to the council on election integrity and the issues he and his organization have found with the Dominion voting machines, the machines which Sherburne County uses. County Auditor Diane Arnold was invited to come and offer a rebuttal of Weible’s claims, but declined to attend.

Weible explained to the council and others in attendance the various ways in which the machines were unreliable. The machines run on Windows 7, which Microsoft no longer supports and therefore they do not receive regular security updates. He also noted that the wifi network, though private and locked, was visible to any person visiting the government center, making it that much easier for a hacker to locate the correct network.

Besides the machines being outdated and hackable, human error can lead to inaccurate counts as well. Incomplete logs of votes and of people entering and exiting the rooms where ballots are stored are two of the issues he discussed.

Weible suggested hand counting the ballots in the upcoming election to eliminate or alleviate these issues.

The full recording of Weible’s presentation to the Big Lake Council can be found at TinyURL.com/RickWeiblePresentation.

After Weible’s presentation, Mayor Paul Knier responded by saying that he was concerned about the issues raised regarding the machines themselves, but that he had full faith in Gina Wolbeck, the city clerk who ran the elections. He promised to continue to research the issue.

Open Forum

Brad Cross, in light of the recent uncertainty cast on the election process in the county, wanted to share his point of view as an election judge. He spoke of the integrity of Gina Wolbeck, city clerk who is in charge of running elections, and had many positive things to say about the way she has run elections in the city. He confirmed that, during the last general election, one of the Dominion voting machines did go down, but that he and another election judge worked quickly to secure the unit. Judges from each party handled all ballots and no ballots were compromised. Cross believes that hand counting ballots would be a bad idea, as he believes this will lead to errors over the course of a long day.

Northland Meadows

The Northland Meadows Second Addition will feature single-family homes and single-family villas.

Council members and staff discussed some concern about the housing density of the proposed project. The area is zoned for R1 residential, but the proposed project would represent slightly more density, making it R2 (although, according to staff, the true density would land somewhere between R1 and R2). Although all of the units are single family homes, the tightly-packed villas with small yards (which are marketed towards 65 and older individuals who don’t need much space and don’t like to do a lot of yard maintenance) make the density higher than the city intended for the area.

The developer’s representative explained that there hasn’t been as much demand for large yards, and in the current market he doubted anyone would be able to develop the area to an R1 standard.

However, the developer was unsure whether they wanted to pursue the plan, anyway, as there would be a significant cost to providing sewer services to the area.

Code Revision

The council heard an update on the code revision project. Staff is working to make city code more “user friendly” for developers and residents. Staff approached the council to give the council members a chance to ask questions and provide feedback. The new code should be in use by next spring if everything goes as planned.

Department Reports

Norm Michels of the streets, parks, and fleet department gave an update on his department’s preparations for the summer. Spring crack filling has been going on for several weeks. They have also been dragging over the ball fields in preparation for youth baseball.

A local excavator volunteered their truck to move pieces of the Lakeside Park pier back to the lake, since none of the city’s vehicles were capable of doing so. Michels offered his sincere gratitude for the gesture, as did the council members. Improvements were made to the boat landing, which had some significant cracking.

The city is working with Sherburne County to offer a story stroll at Highline Park. Kids who complete all the story strolls in the county and collect stamps from each one can receive a prize from their local library.

Dan Childs of the Water and Wastewater department reported that improvements to the water treatment facility have led to much more water conserved.

For 14 years, they were the last resort for protecting the Twin Cities in case of a Soviet air attack.

With 15 minutes’ warning, Nike Hercules missiles could be raised from bunkers, moved to launchpads and aimed to shoot down enemy bombers before they reached the metro area.

One of the few remaining deactivated missiles in the country still is standing in the southwest metro city of St. Bonifacius. It has received much greater appreciation recently with the addition of interpretive panels.

“People questioned why we had it, and they didn’t know what it meant,” said Fred Keller, president of the St. Bonifacius area community development group.

Keller, 72, served in the Navy in Guantanamo Bay shortly before the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, so he’s well aware of what things were like when the St. Bonifacius missile base was built in 1958.

It’s history familiar to others who grew up during the early Cold War years in the 1950s and 1960s, when Soviet achievements in developing nuclear weapons and launching the Sputnik satellite had the United States worried about defending its major cities, military bases and industrial centers. Schools practiced “duck and cover” drills in case of an attack, and some families built bomb shelters.

The Army built defensive missile bases at dozens of locations, including four that ringed the Twin Cities near St. Bonifacius, Farmington, Bethel and Roberts, Wis.

Defense only

The St. Bonifacius site, on farmland about 25 miles from Minneapolis, was chosen because it’s one of the highest points in Hennepin County, Keller said. It contained missiles stored horizontally underground, three large radar units above ground and an administrative building.

The missiles were for defensive purposes only and had a range of about 90 miles. They used the most advanced technology of their time, with missile-tracking radar that allowed the Hercules fins to be adjusted electronically during flight to home in on evasive aircraft.

Jay Gregg, president of the St. Bonifacius Historical Society, remembered how the Army held an open house at the base one day each summer when he was a young man. “They would bring the missiles out of the ground to show them off,” Gregg said. “Everybody was quite impressed.”

Each base had about 115 enlisted men and officers who served three-year tours of duty, according to news accounts of the time. No missiles ever were launched from any of the four Twin Cities bases, and they were deactivated in 1972. By that time, Soviet priorities had shifted away from bombers to intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the United States responded by deploying a new generation of larger, more sophisticated defensive missiles that had faster speeds and longer ranges.

A local businessman succeeded in buying one of the missiles shortly after the St. Bonifacius base closed and stored it behind an appliance shop for a time. Since its installation in the park, civic groups and city workers have repainted the missile’s white exterior as needed, and the large black letters that spell “U.S. Army” vertically along its sides.

Explaining history

The missile in St. Bonifacius with its booster rocket stands about 40 feet tall in the city’s park, just off County Road 92, which runs through town. It’s a peaceful area, framed by mature elm and maple trees, and next to a large picnic pavilion that overlooks the St. Boni Saints baseball field. The Hercules was installed in 1974 with a small marble slab in memory of those who served at the base.

However, fewer and fewer people knew what the missile meant as the decades passed, so Keller spearheaded an effort in 2010 to receive a $14,000 grant from the Minnesota Historical Society. It paid for research and installation of two large interpretive panels that tell the story of the missile and missile base within the greater context of the Cold War. The money came from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund approved by voters in 2008 and was supplemented by donations from a few citizens and local businesses.

“There isn’t a week goes by when there isn’t someone down here looking at this,” Keller said, standing near the missile last week. That includes history classes from local schools, he said, occasional visitors who knew of the base or even served there, and people riding the nearby regional bike trail that detour a few blocks to see it.

“Folks that have been here for generations are pleased that it gives recognition to that era, that time,” Keller said.

It also educates newer generations, long removed from the Cold War and how it relates to conflicts in Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere, he said.

“I have a son who’s about 50 years old, and he didn’t realize half this stuff,” Keller said.

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Video (55:07) : Eugene Rakow, 58, was at work when the 3 1/2-inch nail pierced his chest and came within 2 millimeters of a coronary artery.

A self-employed carpenter in the west metro beat long odds after accidentally shooting himself in the heart with a nail gun and was back home just a few days later to celebrate the birthday of one of his seven children.

“The surgeon said most people die right there,” said Eugene Rakow, 58, of St. Bonifacius. “He said nine out of 10 won’t make it.”

Rakow was building a deck for a neighbor Friday when the 3 1/2-inch nail pierced his chest and came with 2 millimeters of a coronary artery, said Allina’s Gloria O’Connell, a spokeswoman for Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis, where he was treated.

The doctor who performed the surgery, Louis B. Louis, said, “This nail went through the front and the back of his heart, barely missing critical structures. I’m very pleased his post-operative courts has been so uncomplicated.”

Following surgery to remove the nail, Rakow checked out of Abbott on Monday afternoon and looking forwarding to celebrating the 20th birthday of daughter Laura at the home where he lives with his wife, Carmen, and all the kids.

., Provided by the Rakow family

“I was leaning against a board with the gun,” Rakow said. “I had the gun at an angle, chest level, and it jumped and I still had my hand on the trigger. It impaled the nail in my chest.”

At first, Rakow recalled, the injury didn’t hurt “that bad. Your body kind of goes into shock. … I could feel it gurgle a little, crunch a little. I knew it wasn’t good.”

Rakow ran to his truck and got his wife on the phone. She drove him to nearby Waconia Hospital, then he was transferred to Hennepin County Medical Center before ending up at Abbott that night and for the duration of his treatment. Now, he’s out of work for several months as he recovers.

Following surgery, he was given the nail as a reminder of how close he came to missing Laura’s birthday and many others in his family.

The doctor said Rakow “was extremely lucky, first that he was able to get to a hospital and second that the nail missed the coronary artery by about 2 millimeters twice — going in and going out,” O’Connell said.

“The sternum also acted as a 2-by-4 and stopped the nail from going in deeper than it did,” she added. “In the end, [the doctor] put two stitches in the heart.”