Cop lives: Denied by city, saved by Seattle

Seattle Police Officer Dave Clement was suffering from a debilitating disease, yet the City of Seattle’s insurance would not cover it for the 27-year veteran of the force. But that didn’t stop the rest of Seattle from stepping up.

Now, Officer Clement is in remission.

Seattle Officer Dave Clement goes into treatment

“He was a Seattle police officer going on his 27th year of service in Seattle,” said KIRO Radio’s Don O’Neill. “He found out he needed stem cells, he was rejected from the city three times.”

“You saved his life,” Don told listeners. “He would have died. That’s what he told the city, and they denied him. You didn’t. They said no. You said yes. And Dave is in remission. It worked.”

Clement’s story

Doctors diagnosed Clement with Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy, or CIPD, which only affects about 2 out of 100,000 people. It causes his immune system to attack and destroy his own nerve cells. Doctors believed it will leave him paralyzed. But a new treatment at Northwestern University in Illinois was proving to be successful. The treatment had an 80 percent rate of curing other patients with CIDP. It involved harvesting Clement’s own stem cells, shutting his body down with chemo therapy, and then re-starting his body with the stem cells.

The city’s insurance said no to the treatment, calling it experimental.

“The city’s final letter was like ‘good luck,’” said co-host Ron Upshaw. “And it was pretty much fatal. But there was treatment at Northwestern University that the insurance company somehow thought was experimental even though it had an 80 percent success rate.”

“Just so you know,” Don said. “The city is self-funded, so they could have told Aetna (Insurance) at any time to go ahead and write the check for $140,000, and do the stem cells. The mayor never stepped in. The police chief never stepped in. The city council never stepped in. Nobody stepped in.”

“I don’t want to make this political but it’s true – thank God they will help the guy in a tent, or in a derelict RV on the street, and the heroin addict. I appreciate that and I want to help people, too,” he said. “But this is a police officer who has served for 27 years.”

The Ron and Don Show featured Clement’s story on the air in February, directing people to donate to a GoFundMe page. Listeners overshot the $145,000 goal to cover Clement’s medical treatment – they raised more than $180,000. Delta stepped up and donated free travel to and from Northwestern University in Illinois.

“In a day we raised the money, then Delta came in and said they’d fly him there,” Don said. “Last spring he got the stem cells. He flew to the hospital today … they got the results and …”

Fighting back tears, Don read a text message from the Clements:

Dear Ron and Don, here is the latest on Detective Dave. It worked.
Thanks to you for the prayers, the good thoughts and the caring. We just left the neurologist’s office here in Chicago. He told us the stem cell transplant did the job and I’m in remission. Thanks for saving my life. God has been good to us. What a great gift this holiday season. God bless and thank everyone. – Dave and Pam

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