 Now as there's the most hazardous profession in the country, the national injury rate among firefighters is 42%. And in Boston, the rate is often double that average. What gives the city its charm is a firefighter's nightmare. Lots of old buildings made primarily of wood and full of concealed spaces. Spraying these structures from the outside, a surround and ground approach isn't enough. As the number one man in the department, Commissioner Leo Stapleton says, unless the goal is to make a lot of parking lots, the real work has to be done up close and inside. That's why there were some 500 smoke-related injuries every year in Boston prior to 1977. Today, that number has been reduced to about 50, thanks in large part to Stapleton's determination. He'd been a Boston firefighter since 1951 and worked his way up to Deputy Chief when he wrote a letter about the smoke inhalation problem and distributed it around the country. It was a call for help. In Boston, over a period of a couple of decades, we had 10 members killed while utilizing the type of equipment that they had then. So it was very clear to us as well as to many other fire departments that we had to have something better, but they really didn't seem anyone who was going to try to develop it. NASA responded. An engineer at the Johnson Space Center began adapting life support system technology used by Apollo astronauts on the moon. The result? An improved breathing apparatus now being used by firefighters around the world. Manufactured by Scott Aviation, the system consists of a face mask, harness, frame, and air tank. It's much lighter and more reliable than its predecessor. But the most important factor is that firefighters like and use the system. The first year that we utilized the NASA system, we reduced smoke inhalation injuries from 500 down to 50, and that was a tremendous improvement. But also our effect on controlling fires were able to penetrate the building deeper and do our job better. And firefighters were the first one to realize how effective it was. The breathing system every day would have no idea that it had its first test.