Asbestos Exposure in the Naval Shipyards

Brookfield WIMark [not his real name] was only in the Navy for approximately 2 years, but that may have been long enough to generate breathing problems that he suffers to this day. He worked in the Naval shipyards, and was constantly exposed to asbestos. While Mark has not been diagnosed with asbestos mesothelioma , he is aware enough of the health issues to know that it he is at risk.

"I first worked in the naval shipyard in Charleston, [NC]," Mark said. "I was there for 2 months removing various pieces of deck equipment. I went from there to the Bath iron works in Maine, for 10 months, and was involved in what's called a 'baseline overhaul.' This involved chipping off paint and grinding down surfaces. No one even mentioned asbestos until a few years later when it became obvious that a few people who worked in insulation in the Bath yards had developed work-related asbestos problems, and died at relatively young ages.

In 1978 I went to a shipyard in Seattle where I spent a year living on board the ship we were renovating. The ship was gutted and renovated. The only preventative measure I was aware of, in terms of reducing the exposure to asbestos, was a plastic sheet which was meant to act as a barrier between the engineering areas and the crew's living space. We had a young hospital coreman on the ship who was quite concerned about this. He put footnotes on all of our medical records saying that we were asbestos workers and were exposed to asbestos. So we have that documentation."

But by this time Mark had already developed breathing problems. During a stint in Alabama he was treated in hospital for acute shortness of breath. "I went to the VA hospital in Alabama and they kept me in for 4 days for observation," Mark said. "They were taking 2-3 chest x-rays every day. They thought they'd found some kind of artefact in my lung – but they couldn't definitively determine what, if anything was there. I have been tested various times for problems related to breathing. I have never been able to keep the ball up in a pulmonary function test for a standard time. I was treated several times at VA hospitals in Minnesota, but have never had a definitive diagnosis.

I have since learned to live with this and didn't expect much more. However it appears that most people that are afflicted with problems of this nature die from the asbestos exposure at some point in the future. It seems that there's really nothing you can do about this until you're diagnosed with a fatal illness."

Of course the latency period for asbestos mesothelioma, a fatal type of lung cancer brought about through asbestos exposure, can be as much as 30, possibly even 40 years. Mark left the Navy 30 years ago, so a diagnosis of asbestos mesothelioma is a possibility.