Serious health risks associated with toxic smoke from dump site
But while those plans remain nothing more than mere ideas, residents of the immediate area are already complaining of health-related issues due to the toxic smoke from the fire. Today, News 5 spoke to a resident of the area exhibiting symptoms who raised questions about possible long term effects and then Dr. Jorge Hidalgo about the health hazards of breathing in the fumes.
Douglas Gabourel, Faber’s Road Neighbourhood Watch Committee
“The dump fire is affecting all of us back here. Me personally, it’s affecting me by short of breath, respiratory problem, headaches. I don’t have no stomach cramp. I heard of people talking about different ailments that they have, burning of skin, burning of eyes, stomach problem. I just had a meeting with Miss Lady from the Y and her whole staff have to go home from yesterday because the kids—even the kids that come to the Y, they get them out of this. We are hoping that the health department and the health people come on the news and tell us what is the long term effect from this dump.”
Dr. Jorge Hidalgo, Internist/Intensivist
“We can have headache, we can have sore throat, we can have pain in our sinuses, runny nose. Obviously, we can have some eyes problem, itching and also one of the most important problems is for those people that have pre-existing conditions like asthma because to be exposed to the smoke, you can have more frequent attacks of asthma. And also, those people that have already been diagnosed with certain kinds of bronchitis, especially chronic bronchitis or emphysema, we can have most frequently exacerbation of the condition. Also for those patients that have pre-existing heart conditions, the heart can be in trouble meaning that with the pre-existing conditions, you are going to experience more chest pain, can experience irregular heartbeats or the heart starts to beat more frequent. The people who have chronic bronchitis, will experience shortness of breath.”
Jose Sanchez
“Okay and what about long term effects?”
Dr. Jorge Hidalgo
“Well, probably one of the most important examples are people who were exposed to the nine eleven. Remember, that those people who were doing work and the people who volunteered to work, to clean the area, those were the people—one or two years after that, they developed serious lung conditions; chronic bronchitis and especially pulmonary fibrosis. Obviously, some of them are claiming for compensation. So there are some long term effects that, at this point, we can not measure. The most important is trying to avoid exposure. That’s the main prevention but obviously, if they already were exposed, usually the effects don’t last too long.”
