 |
'No one ever told us that stuff could kill you'
Friday, November 19, 1999
By ANDREW SCHNEIDER
Darlene Joy Riley called her cancer "George." Last year, George killed her.
Before she died at age 52, she questioned why she got asbestos fibers in her lungs.
"Why should I wind up with the disease? I didn't work there (at W.R. Grace's vermiculite mine)."
She was a reserve deputy sheriff, worked on the town's ambulance crew, was a trained rescue diver and helped out fighting forest fires.
She raised four children.
One of the things on Toni's wall was a certificate showing she was trained in how to remove asbestos from schools, homes and businesses in a program sponsored by the EPA.
But there was no way to remove it from her lungs.
In 1995, she noticed she was always short of breath. A year later, a doctor in Spokane told her that her chest was filled with mesothelioma, an asbestos-caused cancer of the pleural lining.
Radiation therapy was supposed to give her another couple of years, but the treatment so weakened her that she had to stop helping patients at accidents and fires.
After she became very sick, she sued W.R. Grace to get them to pay for an experimental anti-cancer drug she saw on television. Her struggle with George can be traced in her own words from a two-volume deposition she gave in the case.
She went through surgery.
"I woke up and I'm cut from here to here and I called my family and told everybody that I was fine," she said.
"You can't just die. I mean I can't look at my family and tell them there is no hope. So I tell them that I'm fine and I beat George."
Her old ambulance squad and other friends threw a benefit and raised $5,000 to pay for drugs, mostly painkillers. Others in her family were also ill with asbestos-related diseases, she said, including the man she was married to for 35 years, both her parents, her sister, three cousins, two uncles and her brother-in-law, who was a manager for W.R. Grace.
Neither she nor her parents worked at the mine, but she said she grew up surrounded by the vermiculite ore and dust.
"When the wind blew in Libby years ago, there was dust everywhere. Clothes on the line were white with dust. We used to write in the dust on the cars," she recalled.
She said there weren't any "no trespassing" signs on the mine buildings near the ball fields, between the river and town.
"We climbed and slid on the piles of vermiculite. We picked up little pieces and took them apart. The kids would light it and it would puff up."
Until she took the EPA asbestos course, she said, she had no idea that the fibers were dangerous, and only then did she learn that the Zonolite used for insulation in many of Libby's homes, including hers, contained tremolite fibers.
"Insulation was falling all over the place," Toni said. "It was coming out of the ceiling. I'd pull the string to turn on the light in the laundry room and the stuff would leak to the floor. I just swept it up and threw it outside.
"No one ever told us that stuff could kill you."
She said she learned too late, and she worried about others in town who still didn't know.
At the end, she was housebound. Toni listened to the calls on the ambulance scanner and looked out her front window.
"The window is important to me, to be able to see the sunshine, leaves, the snow," Toni told her lawyers.
Grace made a cash settlement with her a few days before the case was scheduled for trial, but Toni never got her experimental drug.
A few months later, she died.
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT
Darlene -- her friends called her Toni -- was an energetic woman, almost to the end. Plaques and commendations on her living room wall testified to how she lived life.
Toni Riley
Day 1
· A town left to die
· It all started with the search for gold
· The History of W.R. Grace Co.
· Dangers of asbestos exposure
· Known deaths from tremolite from Libby mine (graphic)
Day 2
· While people are dying, government agencies pass buck
· 'No one ever told us that stuff could kill you'
· Libby's lost miners: A gallery
· Group organizes to help victims
(newest at top)
· W.R. Grace to pay record Superfund fine
· Finally, asbestos-plagued Libby, Mont., to get help
· Up to 30% tested in Libby hurt by asbestos
· W.R. Grace files for bankruptcy
· Labor Dept. enters Libby's asbestos fight
· Why did dying miners get no help?
· Health warning on attic asbestos
· W.R. Grace buys its old Libby mine, then bans EPA investigators from it
· Grace backs off pledge to clean up asbestos
· Grace sends papers to EPA -- reportedly tainted
· A small group of physicians is trying to change the course of asbestos-induced disease
· One victim's story: '(I) couldn't get a breath; it scared me to death almost' · Horseman in the race of his life
· Class-action suit targets Grace Co., insulation
· Mine-safety agency takes action
· Immediate cleanup sought in mining town
· Grace to pick up medical bills in tainted town
· Asbestos study is expanded nationwide
· Deadly ore was shipped around U.S., Canada
· Just 23 months hauling ore--and it killed him 36 years later
· Finally, asbestos victims have their say
· Initial tests reveal areas of asbestos in and around Libby
· Montana's governor knows asbestos danger
· State, federal authorities sending teams to Montana mining town
· Editorial: Libby folks must get some answers
· EPA sues for access to Libby vermiculite mine
101 Elliott Ave. W.
Seattle, WA 98119
(206) 448-8000
Home Delivery: (206) 464-2121 or (800) 542-0820
seattlepi.com serves about 1.7 million unique visitors
and 30 million page views each month.
Send comments to newmedia@seattlepi.com
Send investigative tips to iteam@seattlepi.com
©1996-2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Terms of Use/Privacy Policy
