SAN DIEGO (CBS 8) - Thousands will lace up their shoes this weekend for the Komen San Diego Race for the Cure. This year's honorary survivor is a woman used to putting her life on the line for others, but who faced a crisis of her own when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
[ The 2014 Race for the Cure is Sunday, November 2 at Balboa Park. For more information, CLICK HERE >> ]
Lorraine Hutchinson is a San Diego City Deputy Fire Chief who has always taken steps to help others.
"It makes my life meaningful, and we do save lives. And I just feel like that's what I was meant to do," Lorraine said.
So it should come as no surprise that this Sunday she will be taking hundreds of steps at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to help San Diegans with breast cancer.
"Being an African-American woman… while we get breast cancer less than Caucasian women, we die from it at a higher rate," Lorraine said.
For Deputy Chief Hutchinson, this is personal. She's a breast cancer survivor. Diagnosed in 2012, she's lucky doctors caught her cancer early. It taught her an important lesson about putting off mammograms and follow-up appointments.
"I felt like because I did not have a family history of breast cancer, that I was not at high risk for it," she said.
Now she knows better.
"Seventy percent of women who get breast cancer do not have a family history," she said.
Deputy Chief Hutchinson will serve Sunday as the race's honorary survivor, but the honor is all hers because she knows personally how powerful this annual event is.
"Last year was so significant because I was still in chemotherapy and I was out there, and it was so touching all the survivors at the front of the stage. Someone I didn't even know just came and stood by me. We held hands through the whole thing and I cried and it was amazing," Lorraine said.
Out of every dollar raised at Race for the Cure, 75 cents will stay in San Diego to help local women, paying for mammograms and for support during treatment. The other 25 cents goes toward research, so that hopefully one day everyone can be as lucky as Deputy Chief Hutchinson.
"Cancer-free, yes, and excited to be alive and excited to be working with Komen," she said.