Earth Protect Blog

This scares everybody, the fact that we can't stop this well," - BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles, May 29, 2010: More oil-spill responders hospitalized and exposure information gaps persist

by Elizabeth Grossman

As of Saturday afternoon, May 29th, ten oil spill clean-up workers had been admitted to West Jefferson Medical Center (WJMC) in Marrero, Louisiana. All but two have been hospitalized suffering from chest pains, dizziness, headaches, and nausea. One crewmember admitted on the 29th had fallen and hit his head on a stair after wave mixed with oil had washed onto a deck, hospital spokesperson Taslin Alonzo told me about three hours after two workers were admitted Saturday. The other, who was working on what Alonzo called "an oil rig," was suffering from hypertension. All crewmembers hospitalized have long experience working on the water, said Alonzo.

The two crewmembers hospitalized on May 28th had been working on the water about an hour south of Venice, Louisiana near where oil burns have been conducted, said Alonzo. The workers complained of breathing fumes from oil burning the day before, she told me. They also believed they'd been sprayed with chemical dispersant.

Emergency room doctors thought these symptoms could result from dehydration, said Alonzo. "They've been out working 20 to 30 days," in a row, she said. But the thought was, said Alonzo, that symptoms were caused by some kind of chemical irritant. When asked if the hospital tested incoming cases like these for evidence of chemical exposure, Alonzo told me that it doesn't. "We just treat the symptoms," she said.