- Trucker Dukes, 3, was one when he was diagnosed with Stage 4 neuroblastoma
- He was made a FDNY junior firefighter while in NYC receiving cancer treatment
- Trucker’s struggle with cancer inspired everyone from firefighters to celebrities
- After struggling for two years, Trucker passed away at his Hawaii home on Friday
Junior firefighter Trucker Dukes with his mother, Shauna, while he was in NYC undergoing cancer treatment last spring
Three-year-old FDNY junior firefighter Trucker Dukes of Maui, Hawaii, passed away following his battle with cancer last Friday morning.
‘At 10.10am on March 3, 2017, in his mamma’s arms, Trucker took his last breath here and went home to be with Jesus,’ read the Team Trucker Facebook post announcing the sad news.
‘We prayed that his passing (and I say passing because we have hope of seeing him again in Heaven) would be peaceful, not painful and with ohana [family] there. Our God answered this prayer.’
Trucker died after having been in hospice care at his home, alongside his parents and three older siblings, reports The Maui News.
‘Trucker’s passing has been the hardest experience you can imagine,’ his mother Shauna Dukes said in a statement to ABC News. ‘Now we get to celebrate his extraordinary life.’
Trucker suffered from Stage 4 neuroblastoma — a type of cancer that most commonly effects infants and young children — which he had been diagnosed with at the age of 1.
The toddler went through multiple rounds of chemotherapy, radiation and surgeries during the course of his treatment, including, at one point, the removal of a fast-growing tumor in his abdomen that spread through 50 per cent of his body when he was just 19 months old, reports The Maui News.
In an effort to give him the best medical care they could, the Dukes decided to send Tucker and his mom Shauna to New York City, so he could receive treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, last spring.
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