By FireRescue1 Staff
BALTIMORE, Md. — The family of a fallen Baltimore fire cadet will receive Public Safety Officer Benefits, it emerged Monday.
Racheal Wilson, 29, died in February 2007 after she was trapped during live fire training in a row house.
The Department of Justice had blocked Wilson’s children from receiving survivor benefits.
However, in December last year, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder urging the DOJ to support the survivors as Wilson “was without question a member of IAFF Firefighters Union Local 734.” The DOJ’s decision has now been reversed.
“Racheal Wilson’s death was a terrible tragedy, devastating to all those who knew and loved her,” Senator Mikulski said. “Although nothing can erase the pain that Cadet Wilson’s children felt after losing their mother, I’m so relieved they will receive the financial support that she earned and they deserve. I was proud to fight for the benefits they were entitled to.”
In the wake of the death, investigators found a string of mistakes were made by department management, including the fact Wilson was not ready to be sent into a burning dwelling, had failed agility tests and had been given old protective gear that frayed and failed to protect her from the intense heat.