Asbestos – You Can't Say No in the Navy

July 31, 2008

Grant's Pass, OR Carl has scarring of the lungs, and has had chronic breathing problems for more than 50 years. When he was young he worked in the Navy and was exposed to asbestos. Recently, he underwent a lung biopsy and was diagnosed with asbestos mesothelioma.



"I was a seaman first class," Carl said. "It was early in 1946, and I was just 17 years old. I was working aboard the USS South Dakota, in the division in charge of ship maintenance. We were to return the ship to the Moth Ball Fleet; that was the terminology in those days. I was assigned to do maintenance on pipes, some of which were a foot in diameter and had two to three inches of asbestos insulation around them. The ceilings in these rooms I worked in were covered in asbestos-insulated pipes. I was given nothing whatsoever in the way of protective gear. I was just a young recruit along to do the dirty work. I have all this documented, and have filed as asbestosis claim with the Veterans' Association on four separate occasions in the past 62 years."



After the navy, Carl worked in the construction industry for 34 years, as a foreman and then as a superintendent. "I was incapable of doing anything physical. So I became the boss out in the field," he said. He was suffering the effects of asbestosis but didn't know it. "I used to be out on jobsites and would just collapse and fall to my knees, or hit the ground. I'd lay there and try to get a breath, sometimes I wondered if I'd taken my last breath. Then I'd look up to see if any of my employees had noticed what had happened. For years the vice president of the company would send my secretary down to the jobsites with a wool blanket, a pillow and a cot to put in the back room of the mobile office we used in the field, so I could have somewhere to rest."



It wasn't until the 1980s that the dangers of asbestos became widely known, and the health risks associated with exposure to it were beginning to be understood. Today, approximately 1.3 million workers still face significant exposure to asbestos during renovations, demolitions, and asbestos removal. Carl came across asbestos once in his construction career. He shut the site down, and sent his workers home until it had been cleared.



Today, Carl is on oxygen, paid for by Medicare for the first time in over 50 years. "Back in the 1990s I had one of those big, old style oxygen containers--the type they used for welding," he said. "I paid for all of that out of my own pocket. This is all because I have mesothelioma. I've been so short of breath for fifty years, it's unbearable."



Now, at the age of 81, Carl might finally get some help in dealing with his illness. "Now I have a lawyer interested in my case." He is optimistic about the outcome.