Asbestos: One Man's Story

Stainforth, UKHe may live half a world away, but Dennis Beddoes is a classic example of not only the health hazards of asbestos, but also of the typical delay governing the onset of asbestos-related diseases such as cancer, asbestosis and asbestos mesothelioma.

The 70-year-old retired shipbuilder from Stainforth, England suddenly developed a persistent cough, and his voice grew hoarse last November. Seeking medical attention, he was soon diagnosed with cancer in both lungs. His doctors believe that his cancer is linked to asbestos exposure.

Indeed, the man was exposed to asbestos over a 25-year period. But that exposure ended in 1980. As is so often the case with asbestos-related disease, the onset can take years to emerge—sometimes as long as five decades.

In Beddoes' case, it was nearly 28 years before he started noticing the cough, and the hoarseness that finally served as the first warning of a fatal illness. Twenty-eight years, and he never knew.

It was in 1955 that Beddoes started working at the Richard Dunston Shipyard, located in Thorne. His job pretty much confined him to the engine rooms of the ships being built there, at the same time as the exhaust systems of the huge vessels were being lagged with various kinds of asbestos. The latter had long been used as insulation.

"We would be building more than one ship at a time and I used to work my way down the canal from ship to ship," Beddoes says, in comments published in The Star (South Yorkshire) last week. "It would take between one-and-a-half and two hours to fit the floors in the engine rooms. I was therefore exposed to the asbestos dust virtually every day."

Not only was the ship's engine room rife with asbestos, but the buildings in which Beddoes often worked were also lined with asbestos. His work required that he toil in dust-filled environments. He wore asbestos gloves while he worked, he says, gloves that were constantly covered by a fine, white powder.

This is no mention of wearing any kind of breathing apparatus, to keep the asbestos-laden dust particles away from his lungs.

Now, 28 years after a 25-year exposure to asbestos, he is made to suffer yet again. In 1980 his job was made redundant at the shipyard. Beddoes would have been 42—a tough age for anyone to start over.

Now, at the age at which he should be enjoying his well-earned retirement, Beddoes is facing a death sentence. Now, all he can hope for is financial help for his family.

As the Richard Dunston Shipyard is long closed, Beddoes and his lawyers are hoping to pursue damages through the shipyard's insurer. And there may well be others in the same boat as Beddoes, having toiled in an asbestos-laden environment for 25 years only to face an uncertain future.

Such is the frustration surrounding asbestos, which can take so long to appear after exposure. In the decades it usually takes for asbestos exposure to reveal itself, entire companies and corporations can shut down and disappear, limiting the recourse affected workers like Beddoes can take.

It is for this reason that governments need to step in and help, in situations where innocent workers, forced to work in a hazardous environment, are left out in the cold. Rather, they should be duly compensated for their post-work-life suffering.

It may be too late for Beddoes, who now knows what his persistent coughing represents. But a settlement that would help the man pay the bills of his illness, and assist his family, would at least serve as a legacy, sad as it is.

He, and others like him, deserve nothing less. His lawyers are working overtime to make sure somehow, in some way, Beddoes is given his due.