Headlines
More Cancer Victims Sue
07/21/2006
BY KEVIN CRAVER
Brian DiBlasi easily provided for his family working for a manufacturing company before a rare brain tumor put him out of work.
The Cary family of four now lives off savings and the $12-an-hour, part-time school bus driving job of his wife, Cindy. They still are paying medical bills from his 2004 surgery, as well as for medicine and MRIs every three months.
The DiBlasis blame five Ringwood manufacturers that they and others accuse of polluting groundwater in McCullom Lake village and the lake itself, near where Brian spent his youth.
The DiBlasis and former McCullom Lake resident Cynthia Depaepe filed suit Thursday morning, bringing to eight the number of brain cancer victims who say their illnesses were caused by the pollution. While the companies acknowledge the pollution, they deny it could have caused the cancers.
"From those [manufacturers] not thinking about what they were doing, it has changed my life and my children's lives drastically," Cindy DiBlasi said. "People need to be accountable for their actions. My children's lives have changed. Their stay-at-home mother is working now, and we're barely staying afloat."
Philadelphia attorney Aaron Freiwald said he expected to file four more lawsuits in the next several weeks, and was investigating up to six additional illnesses he believed could be linked to decades of pollution in the McCullom Lake area. He filed the first two lawsuits on April 25. The plaintiffs have not specified the amount they are seeking.
The plaintiffs allege that volatile organic compounds from a landfill and from spills since the 1960s seeped into groundwater that residents bathed in, cooked with and drank. They also allege that a stripping system installed to clean the groundwater released the compounds into the air.
"Overall, one of the very strong features of this litigation is the number of brain cancer cases in a very short time frame and in a very compact population," Freiwald said. "So the addition of these cases adds strength to the argument that this simply cannot be coincidence."
Rohm and Haas Chemicals, Morton International, Huntsman, Huntsman Polyurethanes and Modine Manufacturing Co. are defendants in the lawsuits, as well as a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of current and former McCullom Lake residents.
The companies have drilled monitoring wells to track the pollution since detecting it in the mid-1980s.
Rohm and Haas spokesman Syd Havely said maps showed that the plume of chemicals in the groundwater stretches north of the village and away from private residential wells. The company is the largest of the five accused and is Morton's parent company.
"Our investigation shows no connection between the plant and its operations, former and current, and McCullom Lake village or other areas," Havely said. "We see no merit to the cases, and consequently we will defend this very vigorously."
All but one of the plaintiffs were diagnosed between 2004 and 2006. Crystal Lake resident Scott Milliman, who patrolled the McCullom Lake area for years as a McHenry County Sheriff's deputy, was diagnosed in 2002.
DiBlasi grew up on the McHenry side of the lake, he said, and spent his childhood swimming in the lake and drinking water while visiting friends in McCullom Lake village. Depaepe lived in McCullom Lake for 13 years, according to the lawsuit, and underwent surgery in March for hemangioblastoma, an even more rare brain cancer.
Dr. James Ruffer, a radiation oncologist at Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital, said he had treated one such patient in 13 years of specializing in brain cancer. The cancer does not become malignant, but Ruffer said that does not make it any less dangerous.
"It can be a locally very aggressive disease, and in a brain tumor patient, if you have a locally aggressive disease, that can still be fatal," Ruffer said.
Freiwald said he was investigating a second hemangioblastoma case on the lake as well. Depaepe, who now lives in Muscatine, Iowa, could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Brian DiBlasi said he had been rejected twice for Social Security and was going to court for benefits. He also lost his life insurance with his job and said he had yet to find anyone willing to insure a brain cancer survivor. He filed suit in large part to help provide for his wife and his children, Brittany, 12, and Brandon, 10.
Cindy DiBlasi said she could not count on a settlement. And even if they do win their case, she said it would not bring back the man she married. Brian and Cindy both said he turned from a happy-go-lucky life of the party to a quieter man who had trouble with words and a shorter temper. Charts on the walls of their home remind him of the tasks he has to do or he will forget them.
"My husband went into this surgery," Cindy DiBlasi said, "and out came somebody different."
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THE LAWSUITS
As of today, eight brain cancer victims have filed suit against five Ringwood manufacturers they accuse of contaminating McCullom Lake groundwater and air with carcinogenic solvents:
April 25, 2006
– Bryan Freund, 44, of McCullom Lake, and former resident Kurt Weisenberger, 64, file suit. The next-door neighbors were diagnosed in December 2004 and January 2005, respectively, with oligodendroglioma, a rare form of brain cancer.
– Residents Glenn and Donna Gates file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of current and former residents to establish a medical screening and treatment program.
April 28, 2006
– The estate of former resident Franklin Branham, 63, files suit. Branham, also a neighbor of Freund and Weisenberger, was diagnosed in May 2004 with glioblastoma multiforme and died a month later.
May 26, 2006
– Ringwood resident Judith Weisheit, 64, formerly of McCullom Lake, files suit. She was diagnosed with glioblastoma multiforme in April, shortly before the first lawsuits were filed.
– Sandra Wierschke, 44, of McHenry, files suit after undergoing surgery earlier that month for glioblastoma multiforme.
– Scott Milliman, 45, of Crystal Lake, files suit. The McHenry County Sheriff's deputy who frequently patrolled McCullom Lake was diagnosed in 2002 with oligodendroglioma.
July 20, 2006
– Brian DiBlasi, 44, of Cary, files suit. He lived by the lake as a child, and was diagnosed in October 2004 with oligodendroglioma after suffering a grand mal seizure in a health club.
– Cynthia Depaepe, 43, of Muscatine, Iowa, files suit. She lived in McCullom Lake for 13 years, and underwent surgery in March for hemangioblastoma.
BRAIN CANCERS IN THE SUITS
– Glioblastoma multiforme makes up 30 percent of primary brain tumors, is malignant and very difficult to treat, and often fatal. It is the most common type of brain tumor.
– Oligodendroglioma is rarer, making up about 4 percent of primary brain tumors. It appears in a brain hemisphere and can be present for many years before diagnosis. It is very treatable and survivability is high.
– Hemangioblastoma is even more rare, making up about 2 percent of primary brain tumors. However, the disease is benign and does not metastasize. It arises from blood vessels, usually in the cerebellum.
SOURCE: American Brain Tumor Association