Woman to Don Firefighter Gear for Run in Wine Country

A charity run scheduled this weekend in Temecula will include a female competitor wearing 50 pounds of gear to raise awareness about firefighters battling cancer.

The “Dionysus Dash 5K Wine Run” is slated for Sunday morning at Mount Palomar Winery. The race will feature uphill treks and a course through Temecula Valley Wine Country.

Among the participants will be Peggy Abundiz of Alta Loma, co-founder of the Code 3 for a Cure Foundation, a nonprofit that provides support to firefighters stricken with cancer.

Abundiz and her husband, Lorenzo Abundiz, established the organization in 2008 following the latter’s decade-long battle with multiple forms of cancer attributed to his work assignments.

The 27-year firefighting veteran from Santa Ana met his wife-to-be while she was working as a city clerk. They were married in Times Square on June 22, 2001, in a ceremony televised on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

Last year, Peggy Abundiz began representing Code 3 for a Cure Foundation in athletic events, during which she dons basic firefighter gear -- a helmet, turnout, protective pants, oxygen tank and boots.

“My inspiration is Lorenzo,” she said. “He wakes up every morning totally focused and driven towards a purpose. He constantly utilizes his athleticism -- and sometimes sheer grit and determination -- to overcome the painful and debilitating after-effects of cancer treatments and other firefighting-related injuries in order to work to get help for other firefighters who are struggling like he has.”

According to the couple, municipalities often resist acknowledging that firefighters’ illnesses are job-related because of the long-term liabilities.

The foundation cites statistics, some of them based on a 2006 American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine study, showing that firefighters have a greater risk of suffering testicular cancer than any other worker.

The research also indicates they have a 53 percent greater chance of suffering multiple myeloma, a 51 percent greater chance of developing non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a 32 percent higher probability of suffering brain cancer and a 22 percent higher risk of stomach cancer.

More information about the run is available here: http://www.dionysusdash.com/#!temecula/c1saj .

Info on Code 3 for a Cure Foundation is here: https://www.code3foracure.org/ .

--City News Service, photo courtesy of Code 3 for a Cure Foundation