Retired Workers Launch Suit Over Exposure To Diesel Fumes
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Some transit workers who have come down with serious illnesses in recent years say they now believe that diesel fumes spewed out by buses are to blame and they're taking their case to court. NY1 transit reporter Bobby Cuza filed the following story.It was about four years ago that 71-year-old Emidio DeStefano was diagnosed with throat cancer and doctors all asked him the same thing.
"The big question was, every day, everybody that walked into my room – any doctors – 'how many packs of cigarettes did you smoke?' and I’d say, 'I have never smoked in my life.' They didn't believe it,” said DeStefano.
DeStefano may never have smoked, but he did spend 20 years working in a bus depot. On Monday, he and other retired workers announced a lawsuit, saying decades of exposure to diesel exhaust made them sick. There are 13 plaintiffs in all – two of whom have already died.
Of the 13 men, nine of them have cancer of some form, most of them lung cancer. Four of them have some other kind of lung or heart ailment, and some of them have a combination of all three.
The lawsuit does not name the Transit Authority, but rather nine different manufacturers of diesel engines and diesel buses.
"It was the diesel engine manufacturers and the bus manufacturers that basically ignored the serious and harmful impacts,” said attorney John Dearie. “Gave no warning, gave no training, gave none of that to any of the workers."
Today buses are much cleaner. In addition to a number of hybrid electric and natural gas-powered vehicles, transit officials have replaced old diesel engines with cleaner ones and installed filters to catch soot.
But in the old days, bus depots had little ventilation, and workers say, buses would be left idling overnight.
"There were times you couldn't even see the buses, never mind seeing the numbers on them – the smoke and the fumes, it was terrible. And no ventilation,” said retired bus worker Connor Hartnett.
"The smoke was like about ten feet up – inert. It was just lying there. You could almost cut it with a knife,” said retired bus worker James McGee.
General Motors, the biggest company named in the lawsuit, declined comment Monday, saying it hadn't yet seen the lawsuit. Attorneys, meanwhile, say they believe this could be a landmark case, and expect many more sick workers to come forward.