A chance trip to Long Island’s Adventureland amusement park just might have saved Cassidy McCarthy’s life. After Cassidy—whose family calls her Cassie—then 4, complained about pain and nausea following a ride on the Ladybug rollercoaster, her dad, Daniel, a registered nurse, felt her stomach and discovered a small bump. A CT scan ordered up at a local hospital’s emergency room revealed a kidney tumor.
It was another seemingly chance decision by Daniel McCarthy to sign on as a volunteer firefighter more than a decade ago that saved the family’s finances in the wake of Cassidy’s diagnosis with cancer. As it turned out, that activity allowed him to ask The Heather Pendergast Fund, a foundation set up in 2009 to help out the families of Long Island’s volunteer firefighters and EMS workers with their children’s medical expenses, to pay many of Cassidy’s medical bills.
[For more of this story, written by Helaine Olen, go to https://www.theatlantic.com/bu...edical-bills/530679/]
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