Marcus Martinez Obituary, Hoosick Falls Doctor has Unexpectedly Died

Marcus Martinez Obituary Death – Dr. Marcus Martinez, a respected family practitioner who helped spearhead efforts to reveal harmful pollution in his small community’s water supply, died Thursday after a nine-year struggle with a rare form of cancer.Martinez, 51, graduated from Hoosick Falls High School in 1990 and later took over the medical practice that his father, Phillip, managed from 1956 until 1999. Martinez’s treatment of 5,000 patients offered firsthand knowledge of the occurrences of rare diseases that had worried him and his father.

Keep up with what’s going on in Troy, Rensselaer, East Greenbush, and other Rensselaer County municipalities. Register here. Hundreds of people gathered at a local country club in May to commemorate the first Marcus Martinez Community Day, where the physician was recognized for his efforts. In a letter, Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado thanked him for “your admirable work in ensuring the community you love has safe drinking water, you have left an indelible mark on current and future generations.”

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer also reached out to Martinez, calling him “a true hero” and recalling a meeting in February 2016 during which Martinez briefed the senator of the situation in Hoosick Falls. “I promised him that I would do everything in my power to get the (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) to designate the area as a Superfund site, forcing the responsible companies to fix the problem, and to urge the agency to establish a more safe and stringent drinking water standard for (perfluorinated chemicals),” Schumer said in remarks read on his behalf at the ceremony.

Martinez joined up with Michael Hickey, a village resident who had also been suspicious of an unusually high incidence of cancer and other disease cases in the area’s population. Hickey began his investigation when his father died of cancer, having previously worked at the manufacturing factory that was ultimately implicated for poisoning the water.