Hampden County courthouse workers fear building is responsible for string of illnesses, 2 judges’ deaths
“I’m not a doctor and I can’t diagnose causal connections, but you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in this building who would not find it at least odd."
Two judges have died of ALS, and many other employees of the Hampden County courthouse have suffered a variety of other maladies while working there, but a state report indicates that, despite concerns, the courthouse building isn’t to blame.Judge William Boyle, who presided over Springfield District Court, died of ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, this past September, according to MassLive. Boyle died about six years after former Springfield District Court Judge Robert Kumor Jr., who died of ALS in 2013. Both worked in the same office. Another employee, who worked directly above them, died of ALS in 2017, The Boston Globe reports.“I’m not a doctor and I can’t diagnose causal connections, but you would be hard-pressed to find anyone in this building who would not find it at least odd,” Hampden Superior Court clerk Laura Gentile recently told the newspaper.Boyle’s death, according to MassLive, is what led to employees to start tallying everyone who had worked at the court for a longtime and had either become extremely sick or died from cancer or other ailments.It’s a concern strong enough that last month when the employees read the preliminary findings from the draft of the study, conducted by Environmental Health and Engineering Inc., that said the building couldn’t be found responsible for terminal or serious illnesses, they released a letter saying the report ignored their concerns, MassLive reported.“Based on available information, the draft summary assessment, in the opinion of many courthouse employees, minimizes or ignores immediate, serious health risks to courthouse employees,” part of the letter said, according to the news site.About 5,000 people are diagnosed with ALS in the United States each year — that’s two cases per 100,000 people, according to the ALS Association.Along with the three deaths from the incurable, debilitating disease, workers have suffered various illnesses. One employee told the Globe he has water on his lungs, a condition he was diagnosed with after he began working within the courthouse.“There’s no fresh air. You can’t open a window in the whole building,” Gentile told the paper. “People have a lot of issues with their eyes and sinuses in this building. And I can’t do anything about it.”The clerk herself has a cough and dry eyes, and, when she spoke with the newspaper, she had a cold. Many other employees have struggled with illnesses affecting their eyes, skin, and respiratory systems, the Globe reported.While the state knows its courts, not just Hampden County’s, need repairs, officials couldn’t give the Globe a timeline of when the courthouse employees would see long-hoped-for upgrades.
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