Single exposure to asbestos brings family tragedy
A young man\’s desire to earn extra money for his growing family came at a deadly price as he died years later of mesothelioma from being exposed to asbestos on a single job.
David Allinson, deceased, worked at Jonas Woodhead Ltd in Leeds as a machine operator for ten years from 1978. During the summer of 1978, he decided to work through the August closedown, when the furnaces were turned off for maintenance, to make some extra money to support his young family. He was asked to clean out a furnace by scraping dirty materials off wall and shovelling all the debris out from the bottom of the furnace. He was not aware at the time that the furnace was lined with asbestos materials. There were no extraction systems in the area, and as he was not provided with any face masks or respiratory equipment, he was continually breathing asbestos dust throughout that process.
At no other time in his life was David exposed to asbestos. Some 30 years later, David developed mesothelioma, the deadly asbestos cancer, as a result of that one time exposure to asbestos.
Suffering chest pains and breathlessness, David had attended his GP and was diagnosed with Mesothelioma.
David\’s solicitor, Simon Wilson of Morrish Solicitors, said earlier today \”David was an existing client of the firm and when he told me of his diagnosis, I knew he was fighting the clock. I advised him we needed to lodge his claim as quickly as possible. The simple, tragic fact is that he did not have much time left. He needed to be able to enjoy, as much as possible, his remaining time with his family, and let me take the away his worries about the legal issues.\”
Jonas Woodhead had undergone so many changes in the intervening time that establishing the successors of the original company, and their insurers, was extremely difficult. It was not possible to conclude the claim before David\’s untimely passing.
His widow, Gina Allinson, continued the claim on his behalf, and the Defendant\’s insurers eventually accepted responsibility for David\’s condition and his death. Tragically, through her severe distress at the illness and loss of her husband to Mesothelioma, Gina suffered greatly from ill-health, and survived him by only 12 months. Mr and Mrs Allinson\’s daughters continued the claim, receiving £100,000 in damages.
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