MILTON, Pa. — Tom Sheets has spent 30 years running into burning buildings and rushing to accident scenes to help others as a firefighter.

Now it’s his friends’ turn to help him.

After the steelworker, motorcycle club member and Navy veteran was diagnosed with skin cancer last year, friends arranged to have his motorcycle modified to better fit his needs, all at no charge.

The advancing cancer, stage 4a melanoma, required surgery to remove the right side of his neck, and Sheets, 45, hasn’t been able to work since. 

“They took stuff out from my neck to my arm,” he said during an interview last week. “They took out muscle. I have only 50 percent use of my right arm.”

Friends arranged to have a backrest put on his Harley-Davidson 1340cc Softail and had upgrades and repairs made on to the bike as well. The backrest not only gives him a place to strap on all of his medication and other belongings he has to take with him on a ride, but also will help support his fiancee, Lisa Bowersox, who has spine issues.

“A bunch of us pitched in and got a backrest,” said Jeremy Ruhl, of Lewisburg, a truck driver and biker who got to know Sheets two or three years ago through the Masonic Motorcycle Club.

Time and labor for installing the backrest was also donated. 

“Right after my surgery, I knew I wanted to put a backrest on for my (future) wife,” Sheets said. “Adam and Jeremy started making phone calls. The next thing I know, they’re saying everything’s paid for.”

Sheets said his bike was returned to him early last week though he said he hasn’t gone on a long ride yet.

“I went on a five-mile ride. Everything felt pretty good,” he said. “We’re heading to Gettysburg for bike week next week. That’s going to be my ultimate test.”

Sheets was once given just eight months to a year to live but is now trying a new drug therapy, available only at the Lehigh Valley Hospital and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

“I’m now at Lehigh Valley Hospital in Allentown undergoing a special drug therapy to put my cancer into remission,” Sheets said.

As for Sheets’ friends, they’ve got more plans for his bike. 

“We’re trying to raise the money to have it repainted,” Ruhl said. “That’s what bikers are all about — brotherhood — and they give and give and give and don’t ask for anything.”

Sylvester writes for the Sunbury (Pennsylvania) Daily Item.