CBS Atlanta 46Free to Breathe 5K: One family's fight against lung cancer

Summer is in full swing at the Snyder household in McDonough, where family and friends spend their evenings on the front porch, singing and telling stories.

There's just one missing link -- Dwayne Snyder.

"He started playing drums when he was in the fourth grade," said Dwayne's mother Edna Snyder.

"He loved, loved music," added friend and bandmate Renee Linsenmayer.

The 42-year-old rock n' roll drummer, husband and son was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer last October.  In four short months, he was dead.

"He wasn't a smoker, he didn't have a symptom, he was 42," said his wife of 22 years, Jessica Snyder.

Sad, but true -- cases like Dwayne's are all too common.

Lung cancer is the number one cancer killer in the U.S.  More than 200,000 Americans are diagnosed every year and nearly 160,000 of them will die, often because the cancer was detected too late.

Jessica, along with Dwayne's parents Bill and Edna, and more than a dozen of his closest friends will walk in his memory at this weekend's Free to Breathe 5K.

This is the second year for the event, which raises funds for lung cancer research, education and awareness.

"Cancer's a terrible disease. They need to get the best minds on it, get the money behind it and get it cured because it is, from a young person's parents, it's the worst nightmare," said Bill Snyder.

Together, Team Havoc wants to reduce the stigma attached to lung cancer.

"When you hear lung cancer, all you think is well, they just smoked themselves to death, but it's not always that way," Edna Snyder said.

And like many others whose loved ones have lost the fight, Jessica will walk in hopes of better screening methods as a means of early detection.

"What I'd love to see most of all is the walk become more of a survivor walk as opposed to a memorial walk," she said.

The Free to Breathe 5K is this Saturday, Aug. 20 at John Howell Park in Northeast Atlanta.  The race starts at 8:30 a.m. 

You can register in person before the event for $30.  All proceeds go to the National Lung Cancer Partnership.

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