Page 50 - May 2018 FOP Magazine

10th District officer loses battle with cancer
n BY NICK SWEDBERG
Hundreds of photos of Chris Kichura are spread out on his father’s coffee table inside his Northwest Side home.
The photos show Chris at different points of his life and showcase the various interests he had, including attending auto shows or posing with friends and family. Most of the pictures depict Chris, who spent the last year of his life in a hospital, with a big grin.
“All I can tell you about leukemia is that it’s the disease from hell,” said his father, Eddie Kichura, a retired Chicago firefighter. Chris, a Chicago Police Officer from the 10th District, passed away on April 3, about a month shy of his 29th birthday. He had spent three years on the job. Chris had battled a rare form of leukemia since May 2017, and he had relapsed before Christ- mas. Chris underwent a clinical trial at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center before returning to Chicago in the spring of this
year.
A GoFundMe page raised more than $20,000 to pay for an air
ambulance to bring Chris back to Chicago. The cost of the ride was $19,000. Chris had told his family that he wanted to return home. He had been placed in a medically induced coma for two weeks while in the ICU at the Houston hospital but had woken up prior to his return trip, according to the GoFundMe page.
Chris Kichura, an officer in 010, passed away in April.
Through it all, Chris’ father and his girlfriend, Vanna, stayed with him in the hospitals during the last 11 months of his life.
“We just wanted to take care of him, that’s how much we loved him. That’s how much she loved him,” Eddie said.
Chris grew up on the city’s Northwest Side, attending St. Giles School in Oak Park and St. Patrick High School in Chicago. After high school, Chris took classes in preparation for joining one of the city’s first responder departments.
Both Eddie and his father, Walter, were Chicago firefighters. Walter would watch Chris during the days when Eddie was on shift with the department and sell him on all the benefits that come with being a firefighter.
“I would imagine he also would mention to him about the police department. But I think I was the one who put that idea in his head,” Eddie said. “I told him he should take both tests and see how would place.”
The CPD was the first to call Chris, who, according to his fa- ther, “just jumped into it.”
“Ever since he was a little kid, he had it in his mind things he wanted to do and things he wanted to accomplish,” Eddie said. Chris was an accomplished Muay Thai kickboxer. He loved to
travel, ride motorcycles and was working on his first race car, a 2006 Mitsubishi EVO 9, when he when he became sick.
During Chris’s police academy days, he’d often come home and talk about his day with Eddie.
“It’s hard being at home, without him,” Eddie said. “I’ve got millions of pictures. I’m going through them and putting them on Facebook every day.” d
50 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ MAY 2018
n
e s
B f n p s s c
a s
n t a m l
r
V i k
i
i i
f a
p h t y o
b