Call for warning after Teesside dad’s asbestos death
By Andy Passant, Evening Gazette 14 October 2011
AN ASBESTOS victim’s son has called on council chiefs to warn his late father’s former colleagues and pupils at a Teesside school.
Nick Teasdale believes others who were at the same school may have contracted the deadly disease which killed his dad.
His father Norman Teasdale, a former Stockton councillor, worked at the then Billingham Campus School in Marsh House Avenue.
Mr Teasdale was exposed to asbestos from 1962 to 1975, while working as a woodwork and metalwork teacher.
He was diagnosed with asbestos related pleural plaques in June 2009, but was given no advice on how to manage it. After his condition progressed to mesothelioma, he pursued a compensation claim.
This was through his trade union, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers and their disease claims experts, Morrish Solicitors.
Mr Teasdale died aged 72 on October 12, 2010 – a year ago this week. The claim was finally settled in favour of his widow, representing his injuries and the loss of earnings to his surviving family.
Although the exposure occurred during the days of Cleveland County Council, the claim was settled by Stockton Council, as the successor authority.
Son Nick Teasdale, 49, of Billingham, believes Stockton Council should inform former staff and pupils from that time that they may also have been exposed.
He said: “Dad knew of at least one other colleague from Billingham Campus who had died of mesothelioma two years after he was diagnosed.
“I will bet there are others. And not just the teachers either. The students, who might only be in their fifties and sixties, were also exposed to asbestos.
“Stockton Council should let these people know what’s going on.
“It is a terrible thing to watch your loved one die from an asbestos disease. Before the disease took hold Dad had been a strong man.
“He had done up the family home himself, fitted all the woodwork, the windows and done the painting. By August 2010 he did not have the strength to lift a hammer.
“He lost almost half his body weight. It was heart-wrenching to watch the disease take its toll.
“To Dad’s former colleagues and students, I would say get yourself proper expert help now.”
A Stockton Council spokesperson said: “Asbestos related diseases are devastating and our sympathy goes to Mr Teasdale’s family.
“Buildings are now managed in a very different way to how they were in the 1960s and Seventies.”
Ends
