Using himself as an example: Plaintiff Howard Engle's Progeny

Dr. Howard Engle passed away on July 22 at age 89, from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He had smoked multiple packs of cigarettes a day since college. Though he tried many times to quit, he never succeeded, and continued to smoke until his death.

His medical specialty had been pediatric neurology, and he frequently worked with cerebral palsy patients. He preached to his patients about the dangers of smoking, using himself as an example. "He wanted to teach people, especially kids, that smoking is not a good habit," said his son David.

Among his patients in the 1980s were the children of two medical malpractice lawyers, Stanley and Susan Rosenblatt. In 1991, the Rosenblatts brought a class-action suit against tobacco companies on behalf of flight attendants who had inhaled secondhand smoke, winning a settlement that cost the companies $300 million. Dr. Engle took a keen interest in the case.

Because he was a smoker with emphysema who wished to publicize the addictive nature of smoking, he agreed to become the lead plaintiff in a second class action suit, filed by the Rosenblatts in 1994. In 2000, the plaintiffs received the largest punitive award ever decided by a jury, for $145 billion. An appeals court voided the award as excessive and said the class of plaintiffs was too disparate. Later, the Florida Supreme Court let that ruling stand, though it allowed individuals to bring suit. Thousands of individuals have done so, and courts are now beginning to decide their cases – which are known as the Engle Progeny.

Advice: Use your standing and your personal network to fight for public health. Sometimes you have to sue the B*ST*RDS.

Read a very different ">class action lawsuit story.

Thanks to Bruce Weber for the source obituary in the Boston Globe of July 25.

No better way to pay back the universe: A cancer survivor's story

During Thanksgiving weekend in 2005, Henri Engle's throat swelled up. Two weeks later, while watching a movie, he began coughing up blood. He finished the movie before going to the Emergency Room at Massachusetts General Hospital. They took him into surgery immediately, and he awoke in the Oncology unit, diagnosed with a very rare cancer – synovial sarcoma of the throat.

The tall 24-year-old went through four doses of chemotherapy over five months, and six weeks of radiation treatment, twice a day for five days a week. He had to be fed through a gastric feeding tube, and he lost 85 pounds.

Now, he's cancer-free, and at 175 pounds he's in the best shape of his life. How? He attributes his strength to workouts with cast-iron kettlebells – which look like cannonballs, each with a handle, and weigh from 10 to 88 pounds.

Henri encountered personal trainer Anthony DiIuglio, the owner of the first American kettlebell gym, in East Providence, Rhode Island, and began working out. He progressed rapidly under Anthony's guidance. Anthony is himself a cancer survivor. He works with patients while they are undergoing radiation, to offset the scarring and stiffening ("fibrosis") of muscle tissue that radiation can cause.

Henri’s progress prompted him to ask Anthony for a license to open his own Punch Kettlebell Gym. Henri opened the gym this week in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. With the gym, he says, "I get to help people doing something I enjoy – there's no better way to pay back the universe than that. Not everyone gets that kind of direction in life."

Advice: Take heart; people are amazingly resilient. Some find that cancer has led them to find their calling.

Read another inspirational cancer survivor story.

Thanks to Rachana Rathi for the source article in today's Boston Globe.