CALL TO ACTION: "I Don’t Want to Go into My Backyard and Use a Handgun, but I Will” - This Is Not How a Hero's Life Should End
You can help Montana Firefighter Dan Steffensen and others die with dignity, in peace and on their own terms by helping to stop Montana Senate Bill 136
By A.J.Otjen
Montana Firefighter Dan Steffensen, who survived devastating burns in 2021, will probably die this summer from lung cancer. He can do it peacefully on his own terms. Or he can suffer endless pain because of Montana Senate Bill 136.
Recently he told me, “I have watched too many loved ones suffer needlessly. I have also participated in the hospice nightmare as a caregiver. That is abhorrent. I DO NOT want to be concerned about it. I don’t want to go into my back yard and use a handgun, but I will.”
I wrote Dan’s story about surviving being burned over 60% of his body. He has said that I know him better than anyone. I know that he will do what he says. Alone. Summing up the courage to stop the hurt and indignity in one horrific moment.
A year ago, before we published the book, Dan had trouble breathing and a painful cough. An Xray showed a black mass. There were tests, scans and blood screenings that revealed a diagnosis that we expected — extensive small cell lung cancer.
In the book, everyone described Dan with one word — tough. “We were fortunate that he was so tough.” He survived third degree burns, being put in a coma to control the pain and months of skin grafts and wound care. Just two years later, he returned to fight fires in 2023. Chemotherapy kept him off the line in 2024. Then came immunotherapy. He has now restarted chemotherapy due to a relapse.
Dan has never been afraid to die. Not in 2021 when he was burned and not now. He fought to live after being burned. He should not have to battle the Montana legislature to die — in peace. The author of Senate Bill 136 wants to make his death heinous.
We, Dan and I, are asking you to call your representatives and tell them to vote NOT to pass Senate Bill 136 that restricts medical aid for dying.
I do not ask this lightly. I am acutely aware of how much it hurts to lose him.
I have spent the last three years of my life working with him, getting to know a man with unwritten vulnerabilities and deep strengths, memorializing events important to the Red Lodge, burn survivor and firefighter communities.
But this is how it ends. And it should be on his terms. No one else’s, not Senators or Representatives who do not understand the traumas he has endured getting to this point where he is ready to lie down with ease and tranquility.
Dan does not want a fuss. He says he has had an amazing life. Pity or grief or sadness only makes him angry. If we are going to do something for him, it’s this.
It is the immediate task before us, to honor him and others and make the legislature hear us. Senate Bill 136 is brutally wrong. Wrong to take away Dan or anyone’s freedom — when they need it most.
Montana Independent News Addendum:
If you are a registered voter in Montana outside of Carbon County, you can find the contact information for your legislator at https://www.legmt.gov/legislators/
This might be a better link to the current legislators with the redistricting. https://www.legmt.gov/legislators/
I am not in carbon county, but will definitely be reaching out to my legislators.