Standing 6-feet 9-inches tall, St. Paul Fire Captain Mike Paidar is remembered by his colleagues as someone who was hard to miss, not only because of his stature, but because of who he was as a person.
"It was hard to miss him in a crowd," said St. Paul firefighter Nick Shutterly. "He was a man of towering stature and character."
Paidar died in 2020 following a six-month battle with acute myeloid leukemia, marking the first cancer-related line of duty death to be recognized by the state of Minnesota.
St. Paul firefighters including Shutterly planned to come together Wednesday to complete "The Paidar Hero Workout of the Day" which was crafted using exercises loved by Paidar.
"One of his favorite ways to exercise in the gym was with the use of a rowing machine," Shutterly said. "So these workouts that we hold every year in his honor rely on rowing and cardiovascular endurance. He also liked to work with kettlebells and jump ropes. And as every good firefighter loves to do, burpees."
The Paidar begins with a 1,967 meter row in honor of Captain Paidar's birthday, January 31, 1967 and continues with a number of other movements honoring different moments in his life:
17 kettlebell (KB) squats: Honoring his first non-bid assignment after the academy at Station 17
23 KB swings: Mike was a bid at Station 23 from 2013 until 2018
15 KB bent-over rows: Mike's first career started with Maple Grove FD. He was promoted to captain in 2012 and served Maple Grove for 15 years.
9 KB push press: Mike was on SPFD for nine years from 2011 until 2020.
53 double unders: Mike’s love of firefighting started as a child as he watched his dad and grandfather serve in Mechanicsville, Iowa where he grew up. He switched careers in 2005 to become a firefighter himself. He was 53 years young at the time of his death.
20 burpees: Mike was a bid at Station 20 from 2018 until 2020.
The workout finishes with a 2,020 meter row marking the year he was diagnosed with AML which he battled from February 14, 2020 until his end of watch on August 26, 2020.
January is also Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month.
"We hope to use this as a way to advance our message that there are many hazards to the job of firefighting and it can be very difficult to establish cancer as an occupational injury, even though it might be obvious that going in and out of a structure fire or other environment that's saturated with carcinogens," Shutterly said. "St. Paul fire has been very good with our training and with our equipment in finding ways to mitigate the prevalence of those carcinogens."
Wednesday's workout will operate out of the Wellstone Center in St. Paul starting at 9 a.m. with an honor guard service and speakers, including St. Paul mayor Melvin Carter and a recorded message from Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
Klobuchar introduced the Honoring Our Fallen Heroes Act of 2023 following Paidar's death. The bill looks to extend death and disability benefits under the Public Safety Officers' Benefits Program to certain public safety officers and survivors of public safety officers who suffer exposure-related cancer while on duty.
A number of gyms including The Power House, Orange Theory, and Training Haus will lead workouts throughout the morning and into the afternoon.
Shutterly says workouts have honored other fallen St. Paul firefighters in the past.
"Within the span of two weeks back in August 2020 we lost three of our brothers including Mike due to varied causes. One was to PTSD/suicide and another was to heart disease/stroke. To lose all three of them in such a short span was difficult to say the least. We intend to run these workouts every year for as long as we can. In 40 or 50 years from now, those of us that were here for them will likely be gone, but there will be a new generation of firefighters who know those names, how they died, and how we can hopefully prevent these things from happening again."
Wednesday's "Paidar" is a way for Shutterly and fellow firefighters to come together.
"Mike was a tremendous man," he said. "I am relatively a new firefighter hope to measure up to the greatness he and his family, particularly his wife, who's been such an advocate for firefighter health and wellness. We hope to use this as a way to advance our message that there are many hazards to the job of firefighting."